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.

Reflections on becoming a yoga teacher....

What is the image of a heart cracking open?  Of a body being reclaimed?  Of a soul coming into the light?  Is it like a closed lotus flower, coming into bloom?  Or a crevice in the earth, widening.... revealing the dark soil and rocks and heat of her very centre?

What is the sound of a heart, yearning to open, to surrender, to deepen? Of a body, finding its true expression and movement? Is it a keening wail?  A low sigh?  Is it a bird song high in the trees?  Is it the sound of the wind in the trees, breathing power into the world?

What is taste of finding synchronicity?  Of connection?  Of the meeting of minds and bodies and hearts?  Is it sweet like a mango?  Or rich, like dark chocolate?  Or is it full bodied and complex, like good red wine?

What is the smell of unfurling?  Of the unwinding of a lifetime of trauma knotted through the nervous system, embedded in the flesh?  Of the peeling away of layers of shadow and illusion?  Is it like an onion?  Astringent and strong?  Or is it the smell of compost or fetid soil?  Or is it the smell of fresh spring coming through the wide open windows as the house is swept clean?

What is the feel of coming home?  Of reconnecting to a deeper truth?  To the core of my being?  Is it soft, like a down pillow?  Scratchy and yet comforting like a wool blanket?  Or is it spacious and hot and wild like a wind-storm under the hot sun of summer?

How do I put into words this journey? How do I even describe when and where it started?  Do I arbitrarily pick the first weekend of classes?  Or do I include the application process?  Or the thought process?  Or the knowing in my body, that has been with me for 4 years, that I would do this when the time was right?

What do I focus on to describe how I’ve experienced this?  The postures? The anatomy?  The teaching? The people?  And where does yoga teacher training end and the rest of my interconnected, open-system, bio-feedback loop of a life begin?  It’s a tapestry .... pulling one thread tugs them all.

This program, this experience, has opened up a world of possibilities – and shined a light on so much of what was already within me.  It has been a year of deep inner exploration, even as it has been a year of learning new skills .... Verb, Body Part, Direction. 

I feel both stronger, and softer.  I have met my edges, over and over.  I have felt into my vulnerability, and fallen in love with my teachers and my cohort.  I have learned to be present with my own experience – if only for moments at a time when it was most painful .... even as I learned that my primary coping strategy is to escape.  But I kept coming back.  And I keep coming back.

I have learned to move my body differently, hold space differently, breathe differently, and feel my way through differently.  I have learned to listen to my heart and my body in ways I never thought I would.  I have found meditation (finally) that feels resonant, and a path that I can see walking.  I have found my direction, that a year ago was so elusive.

I have rediscovered gratitude and possibility, having weathered my way through a dark night of the soul on the journey.  And the journey, of course, isn’t over ....it simply shifts and evolves into a new chapter. 

Reflections at the 3 month point . . .

I have again gone for a number of weeks without blogging.  When I look in my journal I notice that it too has been sadly neglected.  My excuse has been that I am simply too busy . . . or alternately, that life is too intense to be put into words.  Neither of those is fully truthful, however, neither is fully a lie either.

From a blogging perspective there is the question of just how transparent I want to be about my inner journey . . . and especially when that inner journey is so dominant, how to keep an interesting record of the outer journey, which in some ways has become almost mundane.

Over the last 7 weeks, since I finished the Moon Course at the Pyramids, I have settled (externally) into a routine of working 5 nights a week as a waitress, teaching my dance class one night a week, and a hoop class one afternoon.  I have taken two massage courses: Indian Head Massage and Foot Reflexology; both were amazing.  I have taken the usual trips over to San Pedro or Panajachel for groceries and other miscellaneous supplies, and even hooked myself up with yet another prospective job (doing transcription) on one of those trips.

Some weeks I make it into the lake for a swim almost daily, and others are so full (especially course weeks) that I have gone days without giving myself time at the lake, only to find myself at the familiar place of overwhelm and resentment from my poor self-care.  Those have been powerful learning moments for me - because, really, this is not the place to be stressed out trying to do too much.  If I want that, North America would be happy to provide the venue for it with FAR better pay.

Mind you, stress not-withstanding, North America might also provide me with the venue for a full night's sleep - which I haven't had in weeks.  Between the 2 beautiful dogs that bark right outside my window at all hours and the dyslexic rooster across the pathway that crows at 2am every morning . . . I don't think I've slept through the night more than once since I left the pyramids.  I admit, I think I may sleep for days when I return to Canada. I honestly don't remember downtown Toronto being this disruptive to my sleep pattern.  Perhaps it's just selective memory??

Today I spent the afternoon in Pana trying to renew my visa . . . except that the place to do it simply never opened.  No one seemed to know why.  I hung out, went for lunch, returned, went shopping, returned . . . figuring I'd just arrived in the midst of their lunch / siesta break (2 hours is common for lunch here) . . .but no one ever showed up, so I returned to San Marcos unsatisfied.  It appears I will likely be paying late fees to renew my visa.  I feel, in this moment, that there is a powerful metaphor here . . . but I'm not sure yet what it is.

The inner journey of the last several weeks has been both parallel and almost in dissonance with the external journey.  Even as I have settled into routine, and begun to establish myself within the community, I have been plagued with homesickness.  And yet, when I have contemplated simply packing up and heading home, I have been equally affected with a clear sense that it's not time yet, that I have not seen, heard, experienced and learned all that I came here for. This combination sometimes inspired in me a surprising resentment - like I want to go home, but don't feel I can.  It's an unexpected and odd sensation. 

It has served to highlight, however, some old familiar patterns, and some clear and current questions.  I am humbled to discover, for a clear extrovert - known for my ability to engage and build relationships, how long it takes me to truly invest my self . . . . how much of me I hold just outside the situation I'm in . . . one emotional foot out the door.  It appears I am, just a little (maybe a lot) afraid of commitment . . . and seeing it here, I can see it in other parts of my life - over and over.

I can also see, with real clarity, the parts of my life that I am excited to return to, and the parts that raise real questions for me.  When I have paused to contemplate returning home, I realize that on some level I have been living in transition for almost 2 years; since I left my government job.  Cortes Island is my home - I feel that keenly, and yet for the entire time I have been there, I have been on and off island almost constantly.  Similarly, I feel a deep and keen connection to my work team . .. and yet I know that I am not really contributing at the level that I am capable, nor am I gaining the fulfillment from my work that would be possible if I were more fully engaged. 

And so I am left to ponder - what is it that I am returning to?  What is the life I want to be living?  What will it look like to return home and start again?  Am I starting from scratch, really?  What will I actually be starting with?

And in true human style, I have been so busy obsessing over such questions that I have often forgotten to be present right where I am - in San Marcos, on a sacred lake, formed and surrounded by volcanoes, amongst a beautiful community of interesting people, eating Avocados that fall from the sky, bananas and mangoes for pennies . . .

And so I face a cross-roads as I seek to renew my visa and create the option of another 3 months worth of time here.  How long do I want to stay?   Am I ready to contemplate heading home, or is there more to see, do, experience? What is that I really want out of this trip, and what do I need to do to experience that?