On The Ability To Love
Image by Jeanette Conesa
What I appreciate about myself these days, what I am able to see and hold in reverence, is my ability to love. Truly, I have come to appreciate my ability to transform my constitution to fit and serve in the many atmospheres we encounter in this life; but most recently, most atmospheres around me have required me to love.
I've been ruminating lately on what it might mean to be love, apart from acting out of love or desiring love. What does it mean in a practical sense to embody love? I've come to a semi-conclusion that to be love is to attempt to separate your universal, cosmic self from your flesh form; to assimilate to your surroundings and strive to keep your light glowing, no matter how bright or dull its luminance. I have a tendency to, what feels like, metamorphose continually, mutating and mutating to become just the right shape to plug fully into my surroundings, never feeling quite at home in my skin -- or never feeling quite integrated in my skin.
As the years have passed and I have unplugged from one culture, unmolded myself, and have remolded and re-plugged myself into several other cultures, one question has begun to ring with force in my mind: Who am I? I have eloquent things to say, I have certain stances on subjects concerning human welfare, there is an expectation of the experience you will have of me when you meet me -- because I have been consistent; but I hadn't been able to see that vein of consistency running through me, carrying my lifeblood of love and ultimate truth. Because, when I meet someone face to face and connect with their eyes, lips, jaw, throat, eyebrows, I feel like I'm connecting to them, deeply. Few laypeople are aware of the stories being told on their faces as they instinctively feel emotions and think thoughts that do not simply remain in the cocoon of their innermost beings. I meet these emotions and thoughts on the faces of people and I feel like I can sense everything. So I begin to shift my form.
What can I say, or do, how can I hold myself, how can I breathe so that this person in front of me receives the soft brush of love? That refreshing breeze that always appears at the right moment when it's too hot, or a situation is too tense; the reminder that there are multiple realities existing and we can choose the reality that's indulgently tender. We can choose to soften. How do I hold that space for this person?
Most times, I feel capacious enough for that space-holding, even when, for years, I was unconscious of my actions. Really, beyond an action it’s a desire to feel and to connect -- to plug myself into the worlds of others with their consequent dramas, secrets, vices, and comforts. The "worlds of others'' turn out to be more like the whirlwinds of others, though. For years, as I was unconscious of my behavior, I'd step out of the vortex that was another person's reality completely winded and searching through peripheral vision for stability and support to stand upright in my own life. And when I was unable to rise with the strength of my unique composition, I'd use the handrails of another person's human storyline to prop me up, all while becoming invested. And then once again, infamously, I'd be either catapulted out of or would gently exit another human's experience and turn around to face the cloudy mirror of my own existence and subsistence.
What am I even here for? I'd ask myself. To perpetually play the secondary -- or even tertiary -- character in someone else's show of life?
I began to understand the plight of the supporting character trope. Lovable, always there at the right time when you need them, always somehow orbiting in a way that feels comfortable, useful even. But the center of attention? What for? They are so good at adding salt to the recipe to enhance the flavor of the main character(s).
The Leonine creature inside me would glower and pout, steadily emitting a low moan for attention, for care, for deliberate interest. That part of me needs attention and love in order to flourish, and in order to give. Because with me, I must leave this lifetime with nothing else to give. How do we, as givers and space-holders and forgivers and seers, navigate the tricky institution of human existence where to give a bit is to give a lot? The act of giving in love sucked into a capitalist, imperialist, opportunistic, individualistic cyclone destroying even the seedlings of goodwill planted in its path.
I think it requires, among other things, a change in perspective.
So I have begun investigating what it means to give to myself, to love myself with the same attention, care, and deliberate interest I so willingly give to others. It is disorienting -- at first anyway. One must not enter this work without proper training, an understanding of the lay of the land, if you will. With more consciousness applied to the desire for inner understanding, questions began to rise from my root to my throat: What is the state of my interior landscape? Where do I feel uncomfortable or painful somatic expressions? What external situations cause me to loosen the grip on my internal connectedness?
Time spent with these questions is akin to time spent with a fully-observant, non-judgmental mentor, watching and noting behavior. In this way, you begin to pay attention to yourself, becoming more and more mindful of when you step off your inner path of "Self" and back onto the beaten trail of "others". All the while, your mentor observes, without judgement, seeing you and allowing you space to experiment and explore your inclinations, habits, addictions, and desires.
With time, what were previously diagnostic questions (because every successful project for me has begun with a diagnostic assessment) begin to formulate themselves into more specific inquiries into self-understanding: What elements of my interior landscape am I familiar with, and which ones do I feel wary about? From where do my uncomfortable or painful somatic expressions originate? What thoughts and emotions arise when I find myself slowly unplugging from my world to prepare to plug into someone else's?
As I answer these questions in the form of continued exploration, the inner path of Self, then, begins to appear more clear. Alongside this clarity is an expanded view on my ability to love. I squint my eyes to look over the horizon of my early conditioning, my experiences with romance and intimacy, and remember the strength and power of the love all around me.
I'm convinced I'm living out my soul's mission to love and be love; to give and surrender to receiving; to experiment and dance in the rain with life itself.
