The month of February connotes Valentine’s Day, which turns our thoughts to the topic of “love.”  But what is love?  Is it a feeling?  A force?  Is it God?  Is it all there is?  Trying to define “love” is like trying to define “infinity.”  How do words come remotely close to capturing either?

If we use the concept so freely, I suggerst that we get honest and real with it.  I find that we may know love best by knowing what it is not.  By contrast, that is.  We instinctively know when we are not feeling or behaving in a loving way.  And perhaps, even more so, we know when someone else is not being loving toward us.  At its best, this process of noticing helps us to tune ourselves up. 

In “love relationships” it gets even more murky.  What so often passes for love is actually obsession or addiction.  Do you really love that person, or do you need them?  Love is unconditional.  Anything else is an imposter.  To love is to embrace without clutching, to give versus to barter, and to allow instead of to control. 

This is how we get real with love.  Sound like a tall order?  While it is not easy, it is possible, at least in glimpses anyway.  And the key is self-reverence.  To value oneself is to value others.  To like oneself is to accept others as they are.  To trust oneself is to allow others to be as they are.  A strong and steady loving relationship with oneself opens the gateway for loving relationships with others and with all of life. 

So on Valentine’s Day and all other days, get real with love.  Practice awareness of love, and cultivate the relationship with Self that is the fertile soil within which love can grow.  You do not need to define love when you are able to live it.  You will just know.  From my heart to yours, Happy Valentine’s (every)Day!

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It is the last day of February, and I have been writing and speaking all month on LOVE.  While this month is short on days, I hope that for all of you, it has been long on LOVE.  Let’s consider expanding the association far beyond this one month of the year.

What was your Valentine’s day and month like this year?  How do you feel about LOVE anyway?  Kind of a weird question, isn’t it?  Conceptually redundant?  Not really.  While this word and topic has received a lot of airplay, very few of us are truly comfortable with LOVE, much less have a clue as to what it really is.  That is primarily because of fear.  What is fear?  This one is a bit more clear perhaps.  But I will define it as the pinching off of LOVE.  It is like not really breathing deeply, not opening up to the total expansiveness that a living breath requires.  That is how most people actually breathe most of the time, by the way.  And it is for exactly the same reason, fear.

Let’s not judge, but merely witness this four-letter “F” word for a moment.  What is it really?  How does it arise and what does it do to us?  It arises from our beliefs, which are based on our stories (life experiences and what we conclude from them).  And it restricts us in the name of survival and protection.  Herein lies the grand delusion.  Because anything that restricts you is a death grip.  Your deepest desires and passions are for freedom and joy.  It’s why you do anything.  You believe that it will give you more freedom or happiness.  While your desire is true, your aim is way off.  “You can’t there from here.”  Survival and protection will not lead you toward what you really yearn for.  You cannot get to LOVE from fear.  Never.  Ever.

Hmmmm.  It’s a vicious cycle.  Experiences of disappointment, hurt and pain leave us with fear and a cautious, protective posture towards life.  This raises sensitivity and focus on the unwanted aspects of living instead of on what we really and truly want more of (deep in our heart of hearts).  Much has been written and postulated about this tendency from a suvivalist perspective.  The reptilian brain thing, flight-or-fright, adrenalin surges, etc.  What’s a human to do?

You may have heard about  ”the Shift,” the end of the Mayan calendar, 2012 predictions.  I would suggest that you simply buy one book on all this, as someone else has done all the hard work of putting it together in a way that you (and I) can understand.  Do yourself a favor and get Gregg Braden’s latest, Fractal Time.  In short, it explains that we are at a very crucial point in human history, one we have never been at before in human existence.  It explains everything from the world speeding up to global warming, and everything in between.  So what’s all this have to do with LOVE, you may ask.  Here’s what.

You, me, we are being asked to rise to a new order of our human consciousness.  Well, it’s more than a request.  It’s a requirement.  We have bumbled along at levels of consciousness for thousands of years, gradually ascending to present levels.  But a sizeable leap is now required if we are to live heaven on earth, or even continue to live on earth at all.  This leap is about LOVE.  It is about shortening the distance between the head and the heart.  Indigenous cultures are all aware of the importance of this time in human history and have been anticipating its arrival for hunreds of years.  They are very glad it is here.  They are hopeful that we can rise to the occasion of our energetic invitation (call it “spiritual” if you will) to live, finally, a heart-centered existence.  To live LOVE as it truly is, UNCONDITIONAL.  This is the litmus test of true LOVE.  It only comes in this flavor, UNCONDITIONAL.  Anything other than this is fear (the four-letter “F” word, remember?)

I invite you to think (and feel) on these things as you live through this powerful time in human history.  Practice any ways you can that bring you closer to LOVE (and further from the four-letter “F” word).  Be creative and take it as lightly as you can.  Breathe as deeply as you dare.  Look for beauty everywhere.  See the heart and soul in everyone you meet.  Look into their eyes and let them look into yours.  Soften your face and open to smiling more often than not.  Hang out with babies and animals.  We are all in this together.  We need each other.  We are each other.  Become more consciousness in your every day.  Allow yourself to breathe and believe in the world your heart wants to live in.

We’re closer than you may think.

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It’s that month where visions of cupid, hearts and chocolate fill our minds.  (Yes, chocolate IS a food group!)  What is this holiday about for you?  Does it fill you with warmth or dread?   Does it mean togetherness or loneliness?   And can you answer Tina Turner’s question, “What’s love got to do with it?”  Well I can.  And the answer is, “Everything.”  Both energetically and spiritually speaking, love is all there is.  While we bump around the world awash in physical ”reality,” we are hugely deluded.  We think that by moving things around, and by claiming and naming things, we are really living.  In actuality, we are missing out on the essence of it all if this is all we are about.

I am going to issue an invitation, another take on life, especially as we move into this Valentine’s weekend of 2010.  I invite you to think with your heart, and lose your mind.  I invite you to move with your breath and hear with your feelings.  I invite you to embrace everything and everyone (at least in your thoughts and intentions).  I invite you to stop complaining and to say “yes” to all that comes your way.  Try everything on before you decide about it.  Be more open and expansive about life, especially about your life.  Learn from your pets.  Wag your tail and purr more often.  

Yes, love is truly all there is.  The rest is the painful practice of pinching off love.  I don’t recommend it.  What I do recommend is to celebrate love somehow, somewhere (everywhere), and with someone (everyone) this weekend.  And if it feels good, do it more often.  This is the way we create the world we hope for and dream of. 

Happy Valentine’s Day.  And let me know how this goes for you.  Really.  I’m off to try it myself.  Signing off and sending heart hugs.

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