It feels pertinent to look back as I set intentions for the new year.
Again and again, I find that the word that rises to the surface is Love.
In 2015 I learned a lot about Love. I learned that real honest love is messy–there’s nothing straightforward about it. I learned that love wears an endless number of faces–some that we recognize and many that are new. Love hovers around us patiently waiting, waiting for us to allow it to slip into the cracks in our skin. Love surrounds and holds us even when we don’t recognize its presence. Love buoys us when we’re drowning, slipping, clawing for the surface, asking only that we take its hand and allow it to hold us–not save us–but simply hold us.
Love can be huge and mindblowing. Love can be subtle and quiet. Love can be dirty and messy. Love can sparkle quietly in a phone call from a friend at just the right time, in shared tears at something beyond words, in a touch that moves us to the core.
Recognizing Love’s depth requires listening. So often Love is more in what is felt than in what is said and in order for the message to come across it’s necessary to listen with everything in us. Love is rarely flashy and obvious, in fact when it is, I become suspect. As we all wish for and need love, those forces that want our attention and allegiance, recognizing Love’s power, attempt to take on love’s attributes in order to hook us. They tell us what we must do to deserve love. Be careful there. Because those forces will also warn us what will happen if we do not follow, using fear as a touchstone. But our hearts contain the divining rod that separates fear and love. Listen carefully, trust your heart, remember that everything you need is already right here and that you always have a choice between fear and love.
I have learned a lot about love this year…the biggest lesson being that I have a lot to learn about Love.