How would you define love?

A friend of mine recently how asked me how I would define love; what it means to me to say or hear the words, “I love you”.   

It caused me long pause for thought.  These are the kinds of questions that I spend a lot of time thinking about.  Because the question wasn’t just about love, it was about human relationships, and how we express ourselves within them; how we connect to one-another.  These are questions with no easy or static answers.  The idea of love is both as individual as a birthmark, and as universal as the air we breathe.

I am still exploring what love means to me, especially within the context of relationship – be it romantic or not.  I am fascinated by human beings, and human relationships in particular ... and although I’m still formulating my exact thoughts around it (and may be for the rest of my lifetime) I recognize that I do have some beliefs that are quite clear and strong.  One of those is a firm belief that as human beings, we are designed to love, and designed to be in relationship.   in fact, whether we understand it or not, we ARE in relationship, all the time – with ourselves, each other, and with the world around us, and with the divine. (however we interpret that)

I believe that, fundamentally, what ails us in this society comes back to lack of authentic, present, loving, connection. It is our chronic inability to be full present and connected in those relationships with ourselves, each other, and all that is around us.

I also believe that however one defines love - it's never love itself that causes pain.  It is fear, misunderstanding, and our stories that cause the hurts.  I believe that love itself is absolute and transcends all the 'stuff' of ego and human suffering.  

I don't, however, believe that the statement, "love conquers all" is necessarily accurate - because while love may transcend all - we humans get in the way all the time.  We let fear, ego, stories, and whatever else we can come up with, get between us and that love. The love itself is always there, around us, and available.... we need only the courage to tap in to it, to allow it, to be fully present with it.  

Coming back to the original question – how I define ‘love’.... it’s a working definition (at best), but I think that love is like water; It is both what we are made of and what we are surrounded by.... and it is essential for our survival.

Which doesn't mean that it always looks the way we want it to. Once we're in the realm of relationship with another person we're no longer dealing just with 'love'.  We're dealing with values, beliefs, stories, hopes, fears, boundaries, fantasies, and egos – ours and theirs.  And all of those things are both what bring us suffering, and what give us opportunities to grow, to learn, and to fully experience love when we do open to it. 

It is in the very human struggles, of egos and stories, of fears and hopes and dreams, that we are connected to each other.  It is in our places of darkness, as much as in light, that we find connection, that we need each other.  We are conceived in relationship; our identities are formed in relationship – at our core, we are human in relationship.  Where we hold ourselves back from relationship, we hold ourselves back from our full humanity; we deny ourselves the fullest opportunity to grow and actualize.  To enter into intimate, loving, relationship is the single most courageous thing we can do as human beings.

Summer Awakening

Summer has arrived on the West Coast of BC, here in the Northern Gulf islands . . . hot, sultry, glorious . . . and it is only June! I have already spent several days bathing in the ocean – warm like late August, or the Southern Pacific. The earth yearns for rain, and while I glory in the sunshine, I also note with sadness the change in our climate and the probable impacts, such as drought.

I have also moved, again, as is the way of many Cortesians at this time of year. We call it the summer shuffle; as the winter rentals expire to become high-priced short-term summer rentals and/or to make room for those owners who live here for the short, beautiful, summer months. I have left behind my winter paradise cabin, 20 feet from the ocean for a brand-new little cottage in a ‘village’ for seniors. . . except that the expected seniors didn’t sign up to rent them. There are six cottages, and only three currently occupied, only one with an actual senior in it. I guess my old-soul is manifesting in a new way . . .

My move has been fraught with emotion. I find myself coming up against my expectations, spoken and unspoken, of others, of myself, of the place in which I live. I discover, humbly, where my growing edges continue to be – where my strong values come into conflict with each other. I am reminded why I moved to Cortes – and how my reasons are not necessarily the same as other people’s; how my story about what living on this island means is not the same as others’ stories; how different people’s needs, values, and perspectives can be about the same things.

I also pay attention how much love and beauty I am surrounded by. I breathe in deep gratitude for the friends that I have developed here, for the powerful women I am deepening into relationship with, for the water, the sunshine, and the freedom that I have chosen.

Yesterday I chopped wood for over an hour in the heat of the day (what was I thinking???) . . . and followed it by a swim in the ocean (ah, yes – the reward!). My friend led me through the seaweed and the rocks over the reef at low tide – further out than I’ve ever been, navigating carefully over starfish and other amazing sea-life. We lazed in the clear, beautiful, water as the tide came in, and I realized that little more than a year ago, I’d have been in an office at that time of day, either staring longingly out the window . . . or so busy in my ‘important’ life that I almost forgot that ‘outside’ was even there. Whatever challenges I face here, whatever frustrations may come with this life (there are always some no matter what life we are living), no matter little money I have – I am blessed truly with freedom and abundance here.

Ironically, I have been thinking a lot about going traveling. It’s not so much that I want to leave here, as that I want to see and experience other parts of the world. I want to meet people in different places, experience different ways of living . . . hear and learn other languages. Feel sacred places on the earth. I also have a story about traveling, and finding myself within that process. Connecting to the parts of me that are fully confident in my ability to survive, to navigate anything, to go anywhere.

Last night I danced and, as I spun and spun and spun into ecstasy, I suddenly knew myself as whole – no matter where I am, where I go or don’t. I saw my divinity and felt it through my body. Aaaahhhhhh. I learned, bodily, that I don’t need to go anywhere to find myself. I am already whole.

I still want to travel – but perhaps it can be a lighter experience, one I can be more present to, with less unnecessary expectation. For now I choose to travel through my everyday experience into the sunshine, through the evening, into the realms of possibility and presence. I choose to be here now. And here, now, is incredible joy.

Blessed Be.