Sharing for Valentine's Day

The minute I heard my first love story
I started looking for you, not knowing
how blind that was.

Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere.
They’re in each other all along.

                           ~  Rumi


More than once I’ve loved blindly, “casting my pearls before swine” as my grandmother would say.  Now there are days when I still find myself loving foolishly, if not blindly.  There also are days  I forget there is nothing to be feared in love; fear is all about losing love. Sometimes I forget that we can't lose love; it’s impossible, you know.   We can only take ourselves outside of love—by closing our hearts and removing ourselves from love’s all-encompassing presence.  

Perhaps the difference—in extending love today— is realizing how precious my own love is.  There is a generosity about it, expansiveness and richness, as I believe there is in all unconditional love.  Love of self and love for others are parts of what I call Universal Love.  I like this way of describing Universal Love (also called God as well as by other names):  It's as if Universal Love is the ocean and each of us is a drop in that ocean. We are love.

There is wisdom in opening oneself to love.  There’s strength in feeling the fear and finding enough courage to hold its hand as we cross the bridge from “Never again” to “I’m  going to allow myself this experience of loving.”  The chasm under the bridge is wide and deep, the bridge shaky with nothing to hold onto.  Don’t look down. What’s down there is ugly and incompatible with you.  It’s incompatible with who you are today, with what you’ve found in creating, in expanding, in loving.  The goblins under the bridge are the same—but you are no longer the same.  You have been growing toward unconditional Love.  Perfectly imperfectly growing in that direction, the way a flower grows, reaching toward the sun.

 

     [Image from Little Bird You Are Enough/posted on Facebook. Visit this beautiful site]

Feel your feet taking one step at a time.  Go as slowly or as fast as your body wants to go. Feel your racing pulse; make friends with your damp palms.  You will arrive when you get there.  Remember,  expectations are premeditated resentment.  Let them go, smiling as their echoes are silenced in the abyss.

There are no guarantees.  No promises you can be certain will hold.  Are you sure the bridge you’re crossing will hold?  Of course not.  But here you are on it, getting closer to the other side.  It has taken a long time to make this journey, no?
 

Once I reached the other side, I needed to keep remembering I have no power; that is, no power over my Beloved and very little in our Relationship.  It was, and is, complicated. And though I have no power, I have great power.  My power lies in Universal love and Self love,  love that makes other love possible.   Power lies in my own thoughts.

I say to my Beloved, “My love for you is unconditional.  A relationship with me is not.”   I must take great care of Self in opening more and more to this terrifying, trusted, painful, deep, sweet, delicious, fiery, gentle, exhilarating, difficult, joyful, awe-inspiring Love. I must set boundaries to ensure my well-being, in and apart from our relationship.  I must remember to let go of new expectations every day.  Sometimes every hour.  Otherwise, there will be pain. Premeditated resentment.
 

I continue to enjoy the loving company of friends, allowing the inner presence of my Beloved to inspire me toward greater joy each day.  I fill most of my days with creative work, enjoying a childlike enchantment with nature, with writing, with being.   My Beloved and I inspire one another in creativity.  As a mutual friend described his talent: “To simply describe him as ' an artist' is like saying the Grand Canyon is just a hole in the ground.”

A different friend said, “I want so much more than this for you”—meaning she’d like to see me in a less-complicated relationship, perhaps involving someone coming home every night, sharing the day-to-day.  A relationship in which I would be top priority in his life.  While that would be lovely,  I tell her, “There is nothing more than this.”  This is me claiming the other half of my heart.

We all know there are difficulties to resolve, challenges to meet (and some that can’t be met) any time two people seek growth in and through their love.  Especially a love layered with complexities.  I’m grateful that my Beloved and I have the precious gift of honesty between us.  Honesty has brought us to the comfort and safety of being authentically who we are when we’re together.  No matter the circumstances, we won’t close our hearts to one another.   “This will not change,” he says.  Even when we change, our Love can be trusted to hold steady, like the sun can be trusted to rise and set.

Friends, if you decide to cross that bridge again, you can count on me to cheer you on.  I will remind you not to look down, not to look back.  I will remind you to ignore the naysayers begging you back to the “safety” of where you were, where you lost your belief in Love.  Naysayers always want company; they’re not our responsibility.  I will remind you to listen only to the the sound of your footsteps taking you closer and closer to the glorious experience of Love.  I will remind you to follow your heart and honor your mind.  And I will cheer as you open yourself once again to the only thing worth living for.
                                                 
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I’m smiling now, encouraging you to “dance on Mars” and wishing you a lovely St. Valentine’s Day.