Meditation # 25 L O V E, L O V E, L O V E…
At this point in the year-long process I have embarked upon,
with full commitment and mindfulness as I approach my 44th birthday
on August 22nd, and as an homage to my mother, whose health was
severely impacted last year and with whom I initially did these meditations
over the phone, based on Macrina Wiederkehr’s book, Behold Your Life, I reached
a magical island last time, with Meditation #24. That last shared reflection
was about Water, and I celebrated life and its impetus, how it picks us up and
thrusts us into new experiences, into thrills, into sorrows, and manages to
erode us like everything else it touches, but also defies us to become
resilient and to embrace change; adapting like water itself to the new
containers we become as each life passage forces us to bow to the thrust of new
situations, new people and our ever-evolving identities. Since then, I have
felt like Jonah inside the whale, sitting and watching with eyes wide open as
life led me to explore the Supreme Emotion, as Barbara Frederickson calls Love
in her fascinating book, Love 2.0
Love is a constant ace in our arsenal to deal with life’s
challenges, and it requires, like any other emotion, maturation, practice and
active pursuit of mastery.
I am a child of divorce, so my life-quest to understand Love
and its mutations started with my own bafflement as to how two people who swore
fidelity and union gradually experienced a process that turned the very love that
had been the foundation of their marriage into bitterness, isolation and deceit
until it eroded, like a sand castle, into the sea.
When I felt my own heart stirred and my whole self summoned
by meeting someone at the impressionable age of 18 whom I recognized as my
life-partner, I had no doubts. I had promised myself to follow my heart and its
designs since childhood, and I did. My conviction caused upheaval, criticism,
skepticism and scandal, but follow my heart I did, and it has proven to have
known exactly what it was whispering; the path to Love is not rational, not
straight, and not for the faint at heart.
I have tried to make my life a living experiment of Love in
its many forms, by keeping my heart open and inviting love to preside as the
CEO of my every decision. Now I am learning that Love alters the invisible
chemistry of our body and brain in such powerful ways that it causes identical
changes in the bodies and brains of people who surround us. Love is unfolding
between strangers, it ties friends and binds lovers, but, literally it is truly
a communal phenomenon, a one-meaningful encounter at a time-mind transformer
which depends on connection and can change and evolve whole communities,
families and societies. If the bonds that hold us together are strengthened and
cultivated, we all benefit from Love in a way that transcends the actual
individual to individual affection transactions.
I am getting ready to start life in a new place, a house of
peculiar characteristics where, when I saw it for the first time, I knew I
would be guiding meditation workshops, teaching art, self-love and trying to
communicate what I have come to learn and understand about Love and its power
to transform individual lives, making us realize the power of connection, and helping
us realize how we are all really united, connected, and interdependent, strengthen
community and create waves of healing, growth and resilience that can
physically alter the ratios of negativity and darkness of our world. The House
of Love will be a place where people can share their stories, contribute their
gifts, grow their hearts and find meaning and solace in a community where we
will encourage one another to fall in love with life, one day at a time. Can
you summon Love to preside in your heart and home too?
With L O V E,
Lina.
