Lift

When we take care of our infants, there is a sign on the crib that says: To Raise Bar, Squeeze Together And Lift. We lift up the latch and protect the baby we love from falling.
  When we become older, love lifts us again.  It pulls you into a turbulent flow and you fly through the world as if you had wings.
  There are no straight lines to the travels of love, says the singer Darden Smith, in his album Sunflower.  But there is a Perfect Moment, when the "stars align".

    You feel your body lift  and you soar.  When you are flying,  sometimes it feels like a hungry eagle, sometimes like a gentle dove.  Always, it feels incredible.

All the Ingredients

Photo Credit

You carry all the ingredients
To turn your existence into joy,
Mix them, mix Them!   ~Hafiz  (excerpt from "To Build A Swing")


       I remember when the kids were young, we erected a swing from Little Tikes in the backyard. When we opened the box, all the pieces we needed to assemble the swing were already inside.
   Love is like that. When you find the one you love, everything  you need is already inside the other person.  Everything.  All the experience, skill and beauty is within that person and complete.
    It is like making a pumpkin muffin and opening your pantry to find everything you need to completely bake that muffin. There is no need to add anything extra to the mix.
     Our human  bodies are made of about 30, 000 different genes and when we mix them and cross them we get over 7 billion different specimens of humanity. So when you find that unique person in your life,  it is wondrous. You have found the perfect mix to bring you joy.


Recipe for Pumpkin Muffins
  
    

West Wind

   Love begins with a breeze moving across your skin. After awhile, that breeze turns into a powerful wind. There have been poetic odes to the wind (Shelley) and musical serenades with woodwinds (Mendelssohn Overture)  and each of these recalls the beautiful, elemental force of love.  
   Read this poem by Mary Oliver called West Wind 2. The west wind is a favorable wind that blows from the west in an eastward direction. The poem is therefore symbolic of good things to come when one is surrounded by the wind of love. When you hear the sound of the wind, that unmistakable pounding of your heart beating, run or row toward it.

  West Wind #2 – Mary Oliver

You are young. So you know everything. You leap
into the boat and begin rowing. But listen to me.
Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without
any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me.
Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and
your heart, and heart’s little intelligence, and listen to
me. There is life without love. It is not worth a bent
penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a
dead dog nine days unburied. When you hear, a mile
away and still out of sight, the churn of the water
as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the
sharp rocks—when you hear that unmistakable
pounding—when you feel the mist on your mouth
and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls
plunging and steaming—then row, row for your life
toward it.

A beautiful reading of this poem by Roger Housden can also be found in this interview  and an excerpt from his book Ten Poems To Open Your Heart.

  The composer and singer Sting has also written about the memory of the wind passsing through his lover's hair being like the force of wind passing through the fields of barley. The image of the wind is therefore one of renewal and memory.
    Sting: Fields of Gold

Give Light

Desiderius Erasmus, a Dutch philospher and humanist who lived durirng the Renaissance, said: “Give light, and the darkness will disappear of itself.”

Portrait in oil, Desiderius Erasmus, Hans Holbein. Louvre, Paris

The word light can also mean to give understanding.

Quakers often express a related belief that there is "that of God in Everyone", sometimes known as the "Inner Light".  

   So it is, when you give someone your love, there is no darkness.

Love is perhaps the most supreme form of light.
Here is a song about the Soulshine.

America's Birthday

In early May, 1776, Jefferson traveled to Philadelphia to be a delegate to the Second Continental Congress. After a week’s journey, he arrived in Philadelphia. He was thirty-three years old, the youngest member of the Congress. In Philly,  Jefferson drafted  a declaration. He worked for two and a half weeks in the parlor of his rented rooms in a brick building on Market and Seventh Streets in Philadelphia.

Jefferson would rise before dawn and have tea and biscuits. He’d sit down at his "plain, neat, convenient" writing desk that he had designed. He wrote with a quill pen, ripping up many drafts. A small piece of an early draft remains. It shows how he changed many of his words
Listen to the spoken words of the Declaration of Independence, the nation's most cherished symbol of liberty. 

 Happy Birthday America... Land of Liberty & Love.

Golden Statue of Liberty

Love Leads To Freedom

  In 1960, four African-American college students from North Carolina sat at a lunch counter at Woolworth's Department store and ordered a cup of coffee.  That cup never came because in the racially segregated South, Woolworth's refused to serve black people in its store. This Sit-In  spearheaded other peaceful, non-violent demonstrations for liberty in nine other states.

Greensboro Four

   One of the students, named David Richmond has since died. His life was made more difficult by his stand for freedom. His grave marker in the cemetery where he is buried says:


T "David L. Richmond, 1941-1990, civil rights hero; one of the original Greensboro Four; Feb. 1, 1960; Love leads to Freedom." 

Jackson, Mississippi  Woolworth's 1963

    
   When love is genuine, it embraces not only person, but  everyone in society. Love expects nothing in return, but understanding. Love transforms us and gives us the strength to free ourselves from the past. The Greensboro Four turned their love for humanity into liberty and freedom for us all.


    With that freedom, you can touch the blue sky, fly like the birds and bring joy to your soul. There is no prison wall large enough to stop love, no gate too strong to hold love out.


“In true love, you attain freedom.” 
― Thich Nhat Hanh, True Love: A Practice for Awakening the Heart

Invisible Thread

"An invisible thread connects those destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstances. The thread may stretch or tangle, but never break."  - Ancient Chinese Proverb


This beautiful quote stems from an East Asian belief, originating from Chinese legend and also in Japanese, that the gods tie an invisible red string around the ankles of those that are destined to meet each other in a certain situation or help each other in a certain way.

  According to this myth, two people connected by the red thread are destined lovers, regardless of time, place, or circumstances. This magical cord may stretch or tangle, but never break. This myth is similar to the Western concept of soulmates or a twin flame. 

   An interesting true story about two people who meet on the streets of Brooklyn, New York - an 11-year old panhandler and a busy executive is now a book, The Invisible Thread. Their interview is here.

  The normal twists and turns in life can sometime prevent us from connecting to the person we really love. Still this hopeful proverb describes a place where, someday somewhere, those two people are destined to meet.

Do you have an invisible thread relationship? Read the review of the book The Invisible Thread.