(An immitation of a piece by Ecuadorian Oswaldo Guayasamin that I painted on our window.)
(My digital camera has officially Died…or at least changed to another form of existence that chooses not to turn on. Does anyone have a used digicam they are looking to sell for cheap or donate to a wandering pilgrim who likes to share her captured visions? solbeam@gmail.com)
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Q: You state, “It means I cannot attach myself to any one love as greater, more passionate or more true than another.” This statement seems to allow for different kinds of love. Do you feel different kinds of love for different things while still recognizing that different love doesn’t mean unequal love? Or do you believe in one kind of love and share and experience that love with all things? Is there another explanation?
Such a good question. And one I have only just recently set myself to the task of exploring. So I can only speak from my understanding of it right now, which really could change at any minute. But with disclaimer disclaimed, I step forward.
My current suspicion is that there is only ONE essence of love.
If I strip the love I feel for my father, my sister, my cat, Gandhi, Ralph Waldo Emerson, or the woman that gave me a free sweet bread this morning, I find that when it stands naked of its relation to me, it is all the same. And not only that, but it’s also the same as the love I have newly recognized for the terrorist, the president and the man who ripped me off on papaya at the market yesterday.
Seems to me that when we define Love as falling into different “levels” or “types,” it is not the Love itself that we are classifying, but the level of attachment that we have for the object of that which we direct the love.
“I want to be with him all the time, therefore this is True Love.”
“I don’t want to be near her, therefore this is not Love.”
“I miss them, therefore I love them.”
“I don’t know them, so how could I love them?”
Does the actual Essence of my love change from person to person? Or do the definitions of Love change simply in relation to how much I would miss that person if they were gone and our relationship no longer existed?
As a result of my travels (physical, emotional, spiritual), I have come to some startling realizations about my reality. I uncloaked Death, and found Change travelling incognito underneath. I dissected Time and found the Future and Past as the same momentary glimpses of Now. And I stepped away from Distance, to realize that what I see is only a reflection of the Perspective from where I stand. In my reality (and by no means must anyone share it with me!) Death, Time and Distance are now lackluster and dusty tales that not even the Fairy would bother to present.
So without feeling confined to these counts and measures of the physical world, I suddenly realized that my attachment has nothing left to attach itself to.
I do not miss my mother. Not because I don’t love her or want to be close to her, but because I already feel like she’s standing by my side.
I am not sad to say goodbye to my friends. Because I do not recognize it as any kind of ending, but only a turn in the cycle towards a new beginning.
I do not count the days, months or years till I am with a lover. For it was five minutes ago that we were together, and five minutes till we reunite.
And I do not long for my family, because I feel absolutely surrounded by the familiar relationships that I share with each and every form of Life with which and whom I interact.
And now, left with no means to attach myself, I am left only in my Love; Engulfed in its equanimous essence.
And that is why I believe in One love. One love that is all Love; Its essence as the vibration of energy that underlies our shared existence.
Love that wears the silly clothes that we dress it up in because It is as amused with us as we are it.
But naked, it is Love.
As naked, we all are.
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If you’ve sent me a comment/idea/criticism/question, please be certain that I’m entertaining it, (perhaps even getting a little drunk together), and that we’ll be both be back at you, (perhaps even stopping by Answer’s house?) as soon as we deem ourselves presentable.
Because I consider every reader comment and question essential to my (and our shared) search and understanding.
(sol’s travel photos) (about sol) (some sol stories) (LeapNow.org) (travel disclaimer) (packing list)