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.

Emerging from Silence

It´s been exactly a week since I emerged from silence.  I´m still not sure how to describe my experience of that week, although if you´ve read my previous post, you know that while I may have been silent . . . my world here wasn´t.  Truthfully, my own silence was far from perfect, but it was profound and beautiful. 

Having had post-retreat conversations with folks who have done Vipassana or other similar silent retreats, it is clearly a very different experience.  I didn´t find the going-within, being in my own mental, reflective space part of the silence so challenging.  It was a welcome opportunity . . . though I noticed that like many of the other extroverts in the group, we tended to cluster, even in silence, just to share space with each other.  It was interesting to see how folks hung out in the grey zone though.  The first couple of days in particular, there was a lot of shoulder massage exchanging and note writing by those who were most struggling with the internal journey. . . . and then the days in between that settled into more quiet, and then the last day especially as we all geared up for the final celebration / ritual and the whispered conversations emerged.

It is the last that alludes to the most challenging part for me . . . which is that, unlike Vipassana, where your only purpose and task is to BE in silence, here we had shared tasks, a community built over 3 weeks and logistics to coordinate with each other . . . from sharing a kitchen and daily required medicinal teas, to ensuring everyone had the requisite white outfits on the last night.  One lovely woman coordinated white flowers for us all to wear in our hair and as boutonnieres, etc.  And, of course, after a month together . . . we needed to coordinate the post-silence celebration .. . . all done through notes left around, pointing, gesturing, smiles and nods.  Probably comical to watch from the outside.

Overall, however, it was an amazing time for reflection and inner focus.  Our week was loosely structured with specific places we needed to spend time in each day, and specific questions to meditate on in each of those places.  It will likely be months before I have fully integrated all that I discovered, uncovered and connected with in those places.  For sure I am more connected with my inner light, with the divine and with the light and beauty in all beings.