How to Say “I Love You”
I've been thinking about the many different ways that we show our love, concern, affection, interest, passion and care for the other beings in our experience. The diversity of relationships that we engage in every day mandates that there be a diversity of forms with which to express our relatedness - and finding the right form to fit, perfectly, the kind of relationship we have with each person, plant or pet is one of the arts demanding of human beings.
This question has pressed upon my consciousness more heavily recently, as I struggle with the necessary tension of living in two places. Right now I am evenly divided between home, husband and cats in the Midwest, and grown children (and soon-to-be grandchild!) on the west coast. From my family's point of view I seem to be living the life of Persephone - visible to either the underworld or overworld for six months of each year. (I break up my time a little differently, but overall it's about the same.)
But even to myself I feel divided in loyalties. Sometimes I wonder if humans are more like plants than birds - that we need to remain rooted somewhere and find it hard to live the life of winged migration. But even the flocks of birds, tho they leave nest and habitat behind, take their community with them. Relationships go on progressing as the seasons shift and morph, with all parties in proximity to each other.
Living long distance means that you need to learn to live by stories. Listening for the meanings between the lines of daily events and searching for synchronicities, dreams, serendipities becomes part of the repertoire of attending to the threads on the loom of life that we weave in the great tapestry of family and community that gives us belonging.
Last night I had a dream in which a new IDEA presented itself which I found tremendously comforting. It offered a more expansive definition of love and a practical course of action by which I could feed the far reaches of my garden of friendships and family. Moreover, it fit itself into my identity, suggesting that each of us finds particular ways and means to express our love that spring from the very core of who we are and what matters to us.
This morning I had an email from a very dear friend - an ex-pat - who has lived on a different continent for over a decade and whom I get to see only too rarely. Yet we acknowledge our close connection every time we communicate, even when there are months and oceans that divide us. I shared this dream with him in my email reply and felt my eyes fill with tears as I did so. I recognized the deep truth that it contained and knew, in my heart of hearts, that my friend would also feel the truth of it.
Ultimately, that is what matters - that we find a meeting of hearts and minds - the soulful communion of kindred spirits that fills our lives with the light and warmth that makes everything, and everyone, blossom.
May you, dear Reader, find the ways to love that are deep and authentic to your own being. May you reap the harvest of satisfying and soulful relationships wherever they may be.
To All My Beloveds, Kindred Spirits, Soul-Brothers and Soul-Sisters, near and far . . . .
I LOVE YOU
~ Rebecca, the Storyteller
