Thursday, August 30, 2012

Love Looks Like a Laughing Sea

You know those moments when you're not sure...well, you're not sure of much of anything?

In those moments, I allow. I allow uncertainty. I allow patience...for the answers to come to me...in their own time and via whatever messenger is willing and available.

I've been uncertain.

I've been waiting.

Finally, this came: "For as long as you wish to keep them in your life, whoever they may be, understanding them, as opposed to changing them, will wildly improve the chances that they'll wish to keep you in their life. ~The Universe"

Then there was this: "Dear Human: You’ve got it all wrong. You didn’t come here to master unconditional love. That is where you came from and where you’ll return. You came here to learn personal love. Universal love. Messy love. Sweaty love. Crazy love. Broken love. Whole love. Infused with divinity. Lived through the grace of stumbling. Demonstrated through the beauty of… messing up. Often. You didn’t come here to be perfect. You already are. You came here to be gorgeously human. Flawed and fabulous. And then to rise again into remembering. But unconditional love? Stop telling that story. Love, in truth, doesn’t need ANY other adjectives. It doesn’t require modifiers. It doesn’t require the condition of perfection. It only asks that you show up. And do your best. That you stay present and feel fully. That you shine and fly and laugh and cry and hurt and heal and fall and get back up and play and work and live and die as YOU. It’s enough. It’s Plenty. ~Courtney A. Walsh”

I didn't realize the question was: How Can I Love Without Limits, Without Expectations, Without Fear?

But it is. It is the question. And the answers are oh, so goosebumpy.

Then today I opened my journal...an old journal I haven't used in years. Today I opened it to a page where I had written an ode to an ex while sitting on a Jamaican beach Thanksgiving 2010. We were in touch...again. We were trying to figure out how to be something, anything...again. Today I read my words and I read the above passages and I smiled thinking of how Fate must smile at the challenges we put forth, for I see my words now as a challenge...one that Fate met and The Universe is now explaining to me.

My journal entry says "I sat on the beach, writing our initials in the sand and watching the sea take them back into it's cold depths. I nestled into the sand where it's warm and comforting. I closed my eyes and opened my heart...letting our story pour out into the sea. The sea laughed with the rhythm of breaking waves. It already knew. It knew so much more than we ever will. It offered salt crusted comfort in not knowing. It promised nothing and everything and left me smiling at nothing and everything. There is no us. There was no us. There has always been just a laughing sea, nothing and everything all at once. There is you and there is me and there is the laughing sea."

Today there is acceptance. Today there is gratitude. Today there are smiles. Today there is me, loving anyone who asks to be loved...in whatever way they need the love I have to offer. Today there is no fear and that makes Fate smile upon me.

How Can I Love Without Limits, Without Expectations, Without Fear?

There is no "how".

The answer is yes.

Just yes.

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Just Because...

Sometimes I sit here alone, feeling alone...feeling isolated and sad and sure that I'm the only person feeling this way while everyone I know is somewhere laughing...loving...living out loud. Sometimes. Not often. But lately. Yes, lately.

Then the switch is hit and the feelings pass. It never fails that when I tentatively step into the social circles again, I am blasted with reminders of how connected we all are. Our battles aren't so different. Our perceptions aren't so different. Our needs are so very much NOT different.

And today, this:

What if our religion was each other
If our practice was our life
If our prayer, our words
What if the temple was the Earth
If forests were our church
If holy water - the rivers, lakes and ocean
What if meditation was our relationships
If the teacher was Life
If the wisdom was self knowledge
If love was the centre of our being?

- Ganga White

AMEN!