CartIt’s that time of year again. Valentines day is one of my favorite holidays, not because of the chalky heart shaped candies or the flowers (though I do like flowers), but because it is a day all about the love! The commercialized, high-pressure side of the holiday can make expressions of tenderness feel obligatory and pre-packaged, but the spirit of the holiday is one that I believe most people could really appreciate given the right context.
Love. True love is infinite, ever-expanding, and abundant. Love is like fresh air in the forest, it gives all of itself, all of the time, to everyone. When you are in the forest breathing in the air and you see someone else breathing that same air, you don’t think, “Hey, stop stealing my air!” Yet that is how we often talk and act about love, like there is a limited supply.
Loving is something we do, not something we receive if we’re lucky enough. In fact, being in love, that feeling of becoming alive and having your world rocked, has little to do with the other person loving you! It is your creation. You generate the love and then express it – and that is where that giddy feeling of being in love comes from. You! You are the love machine. In fact, other people loving you is not a prerequisite to your feeling love. This is proven by the fact that you can be love struck without the other person even knowing or sharing your feelings. It’s wonderful for that person if they do share your feelings, because then they get to experience love also.
As for that giddy feeling – the feeling that is so much the focus of our television, movies, and romance novels – it doesn’t have to be giddy to be love. Many relationships have been scrutinized and sabotaged because of the absence of this feeling. Deep, sustainable love tends to be more of a smoldering fire in your heart, rather than an all-out bonfire. It becomes a fuller, textured experience. There is so much richness in this place of relationship.
Love based relationships are not a needs exchange, unlike your relationship is with, say, your barista. You need coffee, they need money – voila, a quality relationship is formed! Romantic relationships are a spiritual opportunity: an opportunity to grow and evolve as a person, an opportunity to express the love within you, and an opportunity to release your barriers to being the object of someone affection.
Years ago one of my dear friends asked me why I chose to get married, when it “doesn’t really mean anything.” I can agree that marriage doesn’t really mean anything, until you give it meaning. For us, it’s a commitment to having our relationship be an opportunity for growth that we would not leave when it becomes uncomfortable. This commitment could certainly be made without being married, but this is how we defined marriage for us
Love is all there is, it is the highest vibration, and it is everlasting. Love is hardwired into you, your birthright, your gift. The air in the forest doesn’t disappear just because you don’t want to breathe it. The air is enjoying being the air and so it continues.
With love,
Briana, Founder of The Dragontree
