Love is…

There are many quotes, books, songs and films about the universal language of love.  In fact, love is the inspiration for just about everything.

Although it does have some bad brothers and sisters.

But when it comes down to it, what exactly is love?

Most of us know what it is like to fall in love; the bliss and excitement of finding a soul mate, the thrill of meeting someone you have a special connection with, who you feel you have known your whole life.

However, sometimes this kind of love can generate a pain and misery all of its own, the pain of separation or loss can bear testament to this.   Indeed many of us have a bittersweet memory of a first love, or have experienced the desperate longing of unrequited love and passion.

So what do people actually mean when they talk about the power of love?  Is it about romantic or familial love, the love of an animal, a pursuit or an ideal or religion?  Does the object of your love have to be something tangible?  Are all loves the same?

When we look at it in this way, love can seem like a big open question.

To me, love can be all of these things and more.  It’s also about connectivity and ’right’ energy.  I am not a marriage counsellor or a religious zealot; I am just a normal human being.  Yet all living beings are experts on love, because we are love.  It is just that us humans are also experts on self-deception.

That’s why we can sometimes turn our back on love, and replace it with something else.

Love speaks to us in many ways, it teaches us through compassion, vulnerability, empathy, and also at times through despair. Love can be the difficult decision we do not want to make, the courage to live a fearless life, the humility to not place ourselves above others, yet also the guts to carry on regardless.

Love is the path of the kind.

Love does not always communicate in the way we would expect, but it has many voices, and is a constant.  It forever shapes us, like polishing old stones into gems, and sometimes its lessons can be torturous; but it is forever teaching us.

We are all students of love, the creator energy, because love is always around us in many shapes and forms.

When I think about the definition of love I always think about the ’Love is..’ comic strip created by Kim Casali in the 1960’s.

For me, there does not need to be any one reason for, or definition of love.

Love just is.