The world is seemingly propelled by a lot of things. Money. Economies. Trade. War. Politics. Progress. Religion. Media.
These systems often perpetuate the idea that we are divided. Those who have money and those who don’t. Economies that are thriving and those that are not. Those with access to trade and those with limited or no access. Opposing sides in a war. Opposing parties in politics. The before and after of progress - and those for and against various issues. Those within a religious community and those outside of it. Good press and bad press, the good people and the bad people in the stories we tell. It’s us and them.
I’m not buying it.
One of the reasons yoga is so appealing, besides my general belief in the benefits of practicing yoga, is the idea that we are all connected. That we are all one.
In Eknath Easwaran’s translation and introduction to The Bhagavad Gita, he writes:
“Underlying this idea is the oneness of life: the Upanishadic discovery that all things are interconnected because at its deepest level creation is indivisible. This oneness bestows balance on the whole of nature such that any disturbance in one place has to send ripples everywhere, as a perfect bubble, touched lightly in one place, trembles all over until balance is restored.”
Underneath it all - under mechanisms like capitalism and globalism and consumerism - it seems like what the world is really propelled by is energy. An energy that we’re all made of, and connected by.
I don’t know if energy and love are the same - but maybe they are. I do think love flows through the central energy that we’re all connected to and connected by.
In that sense, love isn’t an external concept or something to obtain but something we are. It’s something to be. Something to let flow naturally.
I’ve been on a love quest lately. It started subconsciously. In a bookstore late last year, I picked up Remember Love by Cleo Wade. I loved the book of poems she wrote called Heart Talk and was excited about this new book. In another bookstore on another day, I happened to pick up All About Love by bell hooks.
The end result was consuming two books about love in quick succession. In the middle of this reading, I took a trauma-informed yoga workshop. I didn’t tie this with my love-reading initially but as we dug into the workshop I realized how integral love is when it comes to healing trauma.
So my love quest has moved from the subconscious to the conscious and here we are.
The part of America I live in can feel heartless at times. I don’t mean my physical location but sometimes that too. I’ve somehow found myself in the subset of people who log in for work remotely, physically cut off from the outside world. When I venture into the real world, I often see - as an outsider, from afar almost - the unhoused living in various states on the Oakland streets. And I often wonder, why am I so far removed - why do I feel so distant from this person? A couple of different turns in life and this person could be me. I feel that in my bones. But I also feel this invisible barrier. Some of that barrier is fear for sure.
In All About Love, bell hooks wrote about the concept of domination and love - that where there is domination there can’t be love.
I don’t consider myself someone who is actively dominating anyone, especially the unhoused. But yet, I am housed. I am clean. I am safe. I am (perhaps) more free to live a life with dignity and opportunity. This feels like a dominating position.
Back to fear. hooks also said that love is the antidote to fear - and to domination. Choosing love is the way we break down these barriers.
But how do we love? hooks said love is an action. She shared a quote from The Road Less Traveled by Scott Peck, and comes back to this concept multiple times in her book:
“[Love is] the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.”
Hooks went on to further define love in action, and six components of love.
“When we are loving we openly and honestly express care, affection, responsibility, respect, commitment, and trust.”
Language feels important when it comes to love. One of my favorite quotes that I think about often is from Rumi:
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it”
What I’ve wondered lately is how today’s concept of boundaries fits in with this line of thinking. The language of boundaries - as something we “put up” to protect ourselves seems dividing.
Boundaries are important but what if they’re not walls or barriers - what if they’re pathways? Maybe boundaries are what make us feel good - feel like ourselves - in our unique part of the universal energy. And boundaries are not ways to separate, but instead are pathways to connect to each other - to our true selves. To love each other as we are, and as we want to be known.
Love sometimes seems so much more obvious in close proximity. Coffee with a friend. A conversation with strangers who become new friends. Small smiles. A hug. Holding doors. Acknowledging each other.
Maybe, the world is really propelled by love. All these small ripples of love between friends, between individuals that grow and become big waves of progress and change.
It’s hard to believe that most things don’t stem from love. Work for example. Maybe you don’t love your job currently, but maybe there was love at the beginning. The organization you work for was founded out of some kind of love - love of an idea, love of creating something, love of solving a problem. Maybe you got into your field out of love or passion.
Wars for example. Maybe they start from a love of a place, a love of country. Love of culture, and love for a way of being.
Maybe the barriers we put up within ourselves against love start to also grow at a larger scale. Between friends, lovers, spouses, communities, countries, religions.
We start to believe these barriers, and that we are separate. We forget our oneness, and that we are connected.
I believe love exists, always. Like the sky exists, and the moon, the sun, the stars. It’s part of our universe. It’s there, waiting to be tapped into and wanting to flow through our lives, through us.
But I also believe what bell hooks wrote - and opened our eyes to: love is an action. We have to nurture love, take steps to tap into love - and to spread love. Especially in this world that often seems built on division, we have to be active in finding our way back to connection.
There are so many ways to show love. The five love languages have become mainstream - but there aren’t five. There are infinite ways to love each other, to love our communities, and to love this planet. Just as we are infinite in our potential, and the energy of the universe is infinite.
At the same time, it seems like there are a few important ways to show love. We all want to be seen, and heard. And appreciated. There are countless ways we can demonstrate that we see each other, and hear each other, and appreciate each other.
But it’s scary. Fear that we won’t be seen in return. That there’s only so much room - only some people will be seen, heard, and appreciated. That we’re not enough, or deserving. That we will offer love, and receive nothing.
One of the gifts walking a Camino gave me was this stark realization that there is enough room for all of us. Our world is vast and beautiful and there is space for all of us here.
I don’t know if it’s possible to get nothing in return for love. Even if love isn’t reciprocated the way we hoped, we are still changed. We are still expanded by the experience. I don’t know that we can separate growth from love. One comes with the other.
And the beauty is that we don’t have to search for love. We only have to find the courage to let it be.
“LIKING AND LOVING OURSELVES
IS OUR GREATEST
RESPONSIBILITY. IT GIVES US THE
POWER TO WALK IN THE WORLD,
HONEST AND ALIVE,
MASQUERADING AS NO ONE. WITH
NO MOTIVE BUT TO DO GOOD, FEEL
GOOD, AND WANT FOR OTHERS
THE SAME WARMTH WE FEEL
FROM THE CANDLE WE HAVE LIT
WITHIN.”
-Cleo Wade, Remember Love
I am speechless. You have tapped into and pulled together so many things that have been a part of my thinking for a very long time. Some of your words also echo those of intuitive Lee Harris, who channels with a group of beings called the Z’s. I need to reread and digest this some more, but you currently have my head spinning. Wow. Just wow, Laurel. 💕
“All you need is love” John Lennon
Beautiful!! 😎