February 19, 2023
I had a blog reflection started for Valentine’s, but it just didn’t come together. I was too tired and the time too short. Still, I’ve been noticing and reflecting on the different forms of love that show up all around us. The way we talk about love shows how much we try to define and contain it. It just doesn’t fit into a mold! It’s expansive, diverse, and universal. When we see it as a thing to be gained and lost and we seek it outside, it can seem elusive. Then when we “have” it, we try to shape it to fit our definition.
Love actually changes the shape of things we see and do. It shapes us from the inside out because it is us. Love created us, sustains us, and seeks expression through us. This is Love with a capital “L” which permeates all of creation and is often called God. The problem with names is that they come with definitions, and this one surpasses all of that. If Love is my being, then I can never be without it. It may change shape and form, but it remains a constant presence. In this Love, we “live and move and have our being.” Nothing can separate us from it.
When we live and move in the awareness of being in Love, we see that Love reflected in the world around us. We are attuned to beauty, kindness, generosity, and wholeness. We see light in darkness and brokenness because we bring it. The love we carry changes the shape of the spaces we enter. It opens them a little wider and softens the sharp edges. It changes the quality of conversation, activity, and relationships. It creates space for understanding and healing and opens us to become larger vessels. This seems to be where the answers lie.
The world outside us can feel so cold and prickly and often scary. My impulse is often to draw the drapes, pull a fleece blanket over me, and tune my inner radio to smooth jazz. Breathe, relax, pull inward. Snuggle into comfort and safety. I think of the hymn, “You Are My Hiding Place,” which points to an inner sanctuary where I find peace, power, wisdom and strength. Here I realign and abide with the Love that holds me. As my awareness increases, so does my capacity.
Being Love means bringing Love to all that we do. I believe this is the key to healing ourselves, our relationships, our communities and beyond. Being in Love, we raise the vibration around us, and new possibilities begin to take shape. Reacting to anger, fear, and violence with more anger, fear, and violence will further harden those shapes, embedding them in our consciousness and our culture. We have to find another way to be in this world.
Deepak Chopra offers four “anchoring intentions” that can help us align with the Love that we are:
1. Joyful, energetic body
2. Compassionate, loving heart
3. Quiet, alert mind
4. Lightness of being
These are the shapes Love can create in us through intention and imagination. As I learn to live into these states of being, I give Love more room to breathe and grow. Hope and healing gain traction, and new possibilities begin to take shape in my life.
Love & Lightness,
ej
Elisa J. Juarez