%20(1)_edited.png)
~by Chante Ishta
February has at its center a day dedicated to St Valentine and my inspiration to write about love for this month’s blog.
Researching the origin of St. Valentine’s Day reveals, as is often the case, that much is lost in history. There is more to the shrouded story than the simple and romantic meaning we associate it with in modern times. Suffice it to say, father or bishop, Valentine was martyred for practicing a radical and just love. His courageous acts threatened authority. What emboldened him to speak truth to power? What was it that gave him the strength and conviction to act as he did? That answer spirited away with his passing. What remains is a vague story of someone who was moved by love. Hence, Valentine’s Day.
But as lovely as the idea is of dedicating one day each year to celebrating love and its cultural traditions, it is vital to remember that love can be an everyday state, a new way of being in relationship with more than just human beings.
How each of us experiences love, or the lack thereof, will be unique to us. If we are fortunate to be raised in a nurturing environment, we are given a sense of place, of belonging in the world. Those less fortunate are left ungrounded, set adrift to find their own way. In this time of suffering from the divisions and deprivations in the world, a call to practice a more intentional and unconditional love can bridge those gaps, lighten the hearts of strangers, and clear the way for healing and reunion with the sacred in life.
What is the source of light we instantly recognize when it meets our eyes and hearts and lifts the space around us? How does it change us? Who do we become in those spacious moments when we feel more than ourselves? What opens us, permeates us, inhabits us? That nameless presence that enters our being?
Is there more than us here perceiving this?
This world is infused with mystery, a vastness that envelopes us, whispering to us, beckoning to us with such exquisite beauty, filling us with wonder and awe. It is in everything, everywhere in the natural world. It speaks to a yearning in us to know from whence such brilliance and majesty arises. How is it we are given another morning to breathe in Her presence, another chance to be filled from this chalice?
It is widely held that such benevolence and generosity could only come from Love, that ineffable Source of what birthed everything into existence; that original impulse to express creativity into being. That first, brilliant flash of imagination, sacred seeds of pure potential cast to cosmic winds, breathing Itself into all matter and manner of life, bringing forth its progeny into animate form, free to become, to grow, to evolve, to know and be known. The Creator’s design imprinted anew, this creative force renewing Itself into eternity.
Love is a universal force, a radiant transmission, a luminous language transcending all limiting beliefs of time or space. It can enter anyone, at any time, in moments of silence, darkness, peace, or joy. It can heal and transform a shattered heart, mend bodies, restore sight and mind. It is the domain of miracles.
Question: how can this be?
That is the Great Mystery.
Some have experienced this truth. It is what gives me courage to write this, to share this knowing.
And the beauty in this is that I know that it isn’t me who knows. I am but one of countless others in humble service, grateful for the heart and voice I’ve been given to offer thanks and praise for the Love that healed and wholed me at my most lost and broken moment. It was in that darkness, that place of emptiness, knowing nothing, that something entered, something pure and holy washed through me, cleansing me of all ideas of right or wrongness, liberating me out of the prison of judgment that kept me from seeing the perfection in everything. I could see that everyone and everything was on their perfect path of conscious evolution. I could feel love and compassion for everything. I was freed from suffering. I then knew that there was something much greater at work, that there was, indeed, something unimaginably loving and powerful that knows us, loves us, and wants to be known. That experience changed me, transformed me, restored, and expanded my heart’s understanding of what Love is. That was a grace I could not contain, a boundless love that defies limitations. And so, it had to be shared, expressed, mirrored outward to honor that luminous, ever-present Love.
I am, as every extant being is, an expression of the Creator, completely, unconditionally loved beyond imagination. Love is our Guiding, Organizing, Designing Source of everything, our reason for being.
That is my truth.
My prayer: May that radiant light illuminate all hearts.
May the words of Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh, who speaks his (and my) heart in his beautifully composed Ten Love Letters to the Earth, bring that light to all.