Valentine’s Day celebrates romantic love and all its splendor. But aside from the people you adore, consider your other great loves: those things that fill your soul and lift your heart.
Is there a Place you love with all your heart? My heart moves when I recall the river I grew up on, or see the mountainside above my home. Do you love getting your hands into the earth in your garden, coaxing the green things to grow? Consider those who serve their country: a love so profound they freely offer their lives.
How about a profession, a practise, or an avocation? As a painter, my profound love of color can carry me through hard times. Poetry flows from a writer’s love of language, a love that reignites when we hear it. Does not the blacksmith love the hammer and the fiery forge? I’ve seen the boat builder’s hand trail lovingly along a curving flank of gleaming mahogany.
The More Loving One
W.H. Auden
Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.
How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.
What about the love for god? Devotion to the divine, the transcendent, the unknowable fills us with awe. Does your heart lift in prayer? How well do you love the stars, the celestial objects, the splendid universe?
Notice how love illuminates you from within. Even a tiny burst of joy from a songbird in February, or a wave of gratitude for your neighbor who rescued your trash can from blowing away can make your day. I treasure these moments of light. They nourish the part of us that generates more love in the world. And we can all benefit from more of that.
Art-Spirit-Nature 