I'll Wait For You

   Called the quintessential romantic musician of modern times, Bruce Springsteen wrote this love song for his second wife, Patti Scialfa, whom he married in 1989. According to Springsteen,  it is "one of my best songs about the dedication to one another that comes with love."

    Each musician comes to the microphone in a haunting and confessional way to ask their lover to wait for them. If true love exists in this world, shouldn't we wait for it?  The path of a river is not straight and and this song's use of the river, symbolizes the turns love can take. Our own steps are sometimes unclear to each other. Bruce makes it clear to his lover that he may not be perfect, but he  will always want her love. Some people have used this tune as their wedding song.

Crowley's Landing on Mullica River (New Jersey)

We said we'd walk together baby come what may
That come the twilight should we lose our way
If as we're walkin a hand should slip free
I'll wait for you
And should I fall behind
Wait for me

We swore we'd travel darlin' side by side
We'd help each other stay in stride
But each lover's steps fall so differently
But I'll wait for you
And if I should fall behind
Wait for me

Now everyone dreams of a love lasting and true
But you and I know what this world can do
So let's make our steps clear that the other may see
And I'll wait for you
If I should fall behind
Wait for me

Now there's a beautiful river in the valley ahead
There 'neath the oak's bough soon we will be wed
Should we lose each other in the shadow of the evening trees
I'll wait for you
And should I fall behind
Wait for me
Darlin' I'll wait for you
Should I fall behind
Wait for me

Bruce wasn''t the only dreamer expressing the desire to meet again. Walt Whitman gave instructions, advice and hope in "Song of Myself":

 “Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, / Missing me one place search another, / I stop somewhere waiting for you.” 

Higher and Higher

When I visted Chicago recently, one of the guide books mentioned to visit the
The Willis Tower. It holds the distinction of being the tallest building in the United States. It is the go-to spot for many romantic wedding proposals as well. Why? One trip to the Willis Tower’s Sky deck and you’ll feel as if you’re on top of the world.

 Go there it said, because you can say to the one you love, "You make me feel like I'm on top of the world."


   Love makes us feel strong and invincible. It makes us reach for things beyond our usual grasp. Love takes you to a higher ground. Can you imagine this place of love with golden streets? The view alone and of each other is worth it.

Believe in Love

“Believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.” 
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

   We take many trips in life that separate us from the people and things  we love . But Rilke speaks of  love that transcends the physical limitations of the body. This kind of love surrounds you and is stored inside you. This kind of love has no borders of the body to confine its dimensions. It's height and width and breath follow you wherever you go.   

   How is this special aspect of love achieved that it follows you wherever you go and is abundant enough to always be there? It is because you believe and dream about it. Hope follows you everywhere and provides the source of this special form of love.

  

Love Without Prejudice

Maya Angelou said it so beautifully, “We must be warriors in the struggle against ignorance.” Are you being a warrior? Are you fighting on the frontlines? Do you welcome people with open arms, if they’re different than you?

     
At the beginning of the movie Babe, the narrator says, "This is the story of an unprejudiced heart, and how it changed our valley forever."
  How do you change your heart? You must be brave.
   Yet as Mark Nepo says,

"Even the bravest among us, who give their lives to care for others, go numb with fatigue, when the heart can take in no more, when we need time to digest all we meet. Overloaded and overwhelmed, we start to pull back from the world, so we can internalize what the world keeps giving us. Perhaps the noblest private act is the unheralded effort to return: to open our hearts once they’ve closed, to open our souls once they’ve shied away, to soften our minds once they’ve been hardened by the storms of our day."

       ~–Mark Nepo, "Hearing the Cries of the World" from Parabola magazine

    There is in this world too much violence. Who are the warriors against ignorance? One of  them was Gandhi, who said:

"Non-violence is not a garment to be put on and off at will. It's seat is in the heart, and must be an inseparable part of our being."

Biography of Mahatma  Gandhi

   Love is blind and when we overcome prejudice, as portrayed in the movie The Blind Side, great things will happen. Love will finally be the transformation that saves this world. 

Fearless Love

Breast cancer affects 1/8 women, and is the second most common cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States. Melissa Etheridge was affected by breast cancer and this song seems to me to be an anthem for those who have survived this disease.
    If you were to choose a partner to help you with this journey of recovery from cancer, the most important trait of character they need is perseverance. They need to have a fearless love for you. Every one who loves another being with their heart and soul is fearless. They are fearless of the future and fearless of the past. They seek only to better your present life.

It's Complicated

There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.

Thornton Wilder

Tony Blair read these final words as a memorial to the British cittzens who died in NewYork City on
 9-11.  Wilder was looking for a way to find meaning in life when someone dies unexpectedly and tragically. In his book The Bridge of San Luis Rey, five people fall to their death from a suspension bridge in Peru.
   The message of life is to use our time for the greatest purpose. Our greatest purpose is to give love.

   The poet Alan Williamson contemplated the meaning of life and change and when he thought of things that bring him joy concluded:



For a moment I no longer fear the death
that waits for me... ~ Alan Williamson


It's complicated, this thing we call love. But it gives life meaning, much as a lighthouse gives us light in the darkness.

One Hundred Thousand Candles

Apart from Love, everything passes away.
~ Rumi

Love is created from other love. Out of a union, a child is born and more love begins. That love opens our hearts and even if we lose everything: our money, our health, our jobs,  love remains and is nearby.
Look out into the darkness, do you hear the song of love lifting you? It is comforting  to know that Rumi holds love above everything and that it is everlasting. Here is the complete poem by Rumi.

Apart from Love, everything passes away.

The way to heaven is in your heart.

Open and lift the wings of Love!

When Love’s wings are strong, you need no ladder.

Though the world be thorns, a lover’s heart is a bower of roses.

Though heaven’s wheel be mired down, lovers’ lives go forward.

Invite love into each dark corner.

The lover is bright as a hundred thousand candles!

Even if a lover seems to be alone, the secret Beloved is nearby.

The time-span of union is eternity.

The life is a jar, and in it, union is the pure wine.

If we aren’t together, of what use is the jar?

The moment I heard my first love story I began seeking you,

not realising the search was useless.

Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere;

they are in one another’s souls all along.

To celebrate the 1000th Anniversary of the city of Neuchatel, Spanish artist Muma organized a display which featured 100,000 candles that were lit at various spots across the city, requiring the intervention of 1000 volunteers. 24th April 2011.

When you find your love, the time-span of your union is eternity.

                                                       

                                                           Kenny G - Forever In Love

Written in the Sand, Whispered to the Sky

AMORETTI, SONNET #75

By Edmund Spenser

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,

But came the waves and washed it away:

Again I write it with a second hand,

But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.

Vain man, said she, that doest in vain assay,

A mortal thing so to immortalize,

For I myself shall like to this decay,

And eek my name be wiped out likewise.

Not so, (quod I) let baser things devise

To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:

My verse, your virtues rare shall eternize,

And in the heavens write your glorious name.

Where whenas death shall all the world subdue,

Our love shall live, and later life renew.

Name in the Sand 

                                             

   The love that comes in summer is immortalized in many poems and songs.

Amoretti is an Elizabethan sonnet-cycle, a series of interconnected poems which conventionally trace a man's attempt to woo his beloved, the moment she capitulates to him and returns his love, and his sorrow at somehow losing her again. Spenser's sonnet-cycle divides readily into these three sections: his pursuit of the beloved extends from Sonnet 1 to Sonnet 57. Sonnets 58 through 77 mostly dwell upon the speaker's humility at having won his beloved's heart and his own impatience to consummate the relationship. Sonnets 78 through 89 focus primarily on the speaker's longing for his beloved, who is absent for some reason, while comforting himself with his poetry's ability to immortalize her.

    It is very likely Edmund Spencer intended these poems to be a wedding gift to his second wife, Elizabeth Boyle. The sequence of eighty-nine sonnets, entitled
 Amoretti and Epithalmion, still hold up today even though they were written in 1595.

                                                  Singer, Sophie B. Hawkins   

 As the song by Sophie B.Hawkins shows, whether you whisper your lovers's name upon the wind or write messages on the sand, art will immortalize love.