Light of Love

First Light

Rumi said, “Wherever you are, and whatever you do, be in love.”

We were born connected to Love.  Depending on what our world was like, we learned over time that maybe we weren’t good enough, and we began to focus on ways to be worthy. We learned to focus on this fear of not being what others expected or wanted from us. We thought that that was real. It isn’t. We thought that we were separate from each other and the Divine. We are not.

When I was little, I was mostly about Love. I loved everything and everyone. I use to skip down the path to the rhythm of a little mantra always looping in my heart. “I love…I love…I love.” When I was old enough to learn letters, I wrote it in crayon on my bedroom wallpaper. How could my mom be mad at that? She smiled and said it could stay, but never to write or draw on the wall again.

I felt enchanted by Nature. Being often ill, I spent a great amount of time sitting and walking quietly in the woods listening and loving. I felt the Divine essence in every creature, every stone, every leaf, every tree.

When my mom died, which coincided with the throws of puberty, suddenly life was different.  There were expectations, judgements and meanness. My mantra changed to, “I want to go home… I want to go home.”  My heart had gone from an expanded state of Love to one of sadness and yearning.

I believe our relationship with our parents can be a mirror for our true relationship with the Divine. Mine became one of separation and deep longing.

For years, I longed for that assumed Love. I looked outside myself – in spiritual teachers, in relationships, in adventure.  In Nature, I felt it. My heart would well up and I would cry with deep appreciation of beauty and the feeling of home. In Nature, I remembered. In Nature, I knew who I was. In Nature I felt the Oneness. I was inseparable from my surroundings. I would become a flower, a tree, a bird and I would experience the felt sense of Home.

Today, as I stand on Holy Ground, I feel that every inch I touch and see, is the whole planet. I sit on the soil of the Mother and feel Her Love come up my spine to my Heart. I look up to the expansive, blue Father Sky. Every inch is the whole atmosphere, and I feel the Love come down through the top of my head to my Heart. When they meet there, it becomes Light. I take it in and project it to all the flora and fauna around me. I feel it radiating out of my Heart, out to all of our land, around the whole canyon, the state, the country, the globe until I am one with the world in love.

When I try to do this on concrete, where there are no trees, it just doesn’t happen. In the world, my ego gets involved. Now, mind you, I don’t really have anything against my ego. We have been together through thick and thin. It means well, but it is a bit misled. It often falls for the fear, and makes up stories around some event, something someone said or did, how someone might have looked at me. It looks for evidence to support these stories. It judges me for my reactions and ways I handle some things. It wants credit for things that aren’t important. It wants to be right. It can be competitive, guilty and full of resentment. It can feel scarcity, limitation and struggle. It can feel insecure. It wants me to be liked or really to be loved. And there it is. Love.

Though difficult, my little ego is teachable. Or, it isn’t really about teaching it. It is about unlearning what was mistakenly learned. It is about remembering. Remembering we are spiritual beings having a human experience. Remembering we are not separate. We are One. Separation is an illusion. It is Love shut down. It is a false sense of life, a false sense of Self. We fear it. As we let go our fear, we see there was never Separation at all.

I try to keep my little ego surrounded and full of Light, but dang if it doesn’t get caught up in fear from time to time. I just love it, forgive it and feel compassion toward it, as it shows me what still needs healing. The thing is, fear just isn’t real. Anything not Love is just not truth. It helps her when I love her pain. It settles it, heals it like Tums for a bellyache or a lollypop at the doctor’s office. It just melts away. Love can never be destroyed. Just hidden.

I love my heart. I love that it knows what’s true. I love how quickly it notices when ego is in action and how quickly it can soothe her, and find balance again. Expectations, judgements and attachment to any outcome can still get me in trouble, but with compassionate self -forgiveness and the presence of unconditional loving, it’s all good.

It’s all a mirror. To judge another is to judge ourselves.  An interesting thing is when healing on one level, the mirror may show up on other levels as well, as we are holographic in nature. Looking in the mirrors of other’s eyes,  we can ask ourselves, “what is it I see that I have lost? What part of my power have I given away? What piece of myself did I let someone take from me? What baggage is this person triggering for me? Of what part of myself am I being reminded? Or what early experience?

As we heal ourselves, the reflection becomes clearer

I try to know the difference between the state of Love and the feeling of love. It is kind of fun to play with that distinction. I have been romantically in love and felt like it was Divine love, but is it? When I feel so at-one with my partner and I can’t tell where I begin and where they end. Is that love or Love? When I feel in Love with all the animals, trees and grasses, is that personal love? When I feel it all as a big Embrace, I feel that it is Divine Love – the State of Love.

I hold the intention to be my authentic self, and in my Loving in every moment – and I can feel its power. My intention is to engage with Love, to embrace it fully in the Now Moment, and to extend Love Unconditionally to everyone with whom I interact. I aspire to be multidimensional, and to live in a state of Divine Love, Harmony and Grace. I choose peace, surrender and the letting go of mental and emotional resistance to what is, as this strengthens separation too.  Radiating in Unity of Consciousness and being fully present with gratitude in each present moment is where I desire to live.

As water rolls of this duck’s back, it confirms my commitment to let go of resistance.

Again, with another sign, I am reminded to let go…

I posted once about the State of Happiness and the feeling of happiness. The posts were Happiness and Finding Your Own North Star. This is similar. The State of Unconditional Love and the wonderful feeling of personal love. Both seem important. I remember as a child, I really did Love every earthly being. I loved Jesus because He was synonymous with Love. Part of me wants to be in Unconditional Love all the time and love everyone equally;  but then again I also love the precious uniqueness of myself and my loved ones. In a way, this causes the very separateness that I don’t want in the world. But, I am where I am. I can’t be further along, no matter how much I may want it, until I get there.

There is so much going on in the world that pains me, and contracts my heart. There is so much beyond my control. I wish I could help more. Yet, I also feel a Happiness and Love in my Heart. I do what I can and I project as much Love onto the situation as I can in prayer. I love this paragraph from one of Michael Mark’s posts:

“Were we to devote ourselves to Love, at the expense of being in position- at least temporarily- to offer any intelligent opinions on what is happening to ourselves or to one another or to this planet, we’d (generally speaking) feel like fools or losers or lazy bums or uncaring blowhards or whatever.  How hard is it to say, “I have no idea,” while also saying, “but I care a great deal.”  Seriously, imagine when someone asks your opinion on how to shape this world up, and you say, “I haven’t a clue of what to do or say or be about it, but I trust in Love,” or “I have no idea and I cannot even come up with an opinion on that particular issue that is affecting millions of people, but right now, I feel completely full and I am so glad to be sharing this moment with you.”

He then goes on to ask, “Is Love enough? What could it be, really?”

Miracles abound. Right now! I do believe that Love can heal the world. Love dissolves all negativity, all fear. As we heal and regenerate ourselves with Love and Compassion, it ripples out, and echoes all over the planet.

Do you believe Love can heal the world? How do you tell the difference between Love and love? Have you awakened to a deeper, purer understanding of Love other than personal love? What is that like for you?