you know the feeling of beginning to eat only to realize how hungry you were?
as you fill yourself up, you immerse into deep satiation…
contentedness.
peace.
you might’ve expected to feel heavier, more dense. but much to your surprise, you become lighter.
the hidden pang of desire dissipates, a burden you didn’t know you’d been carrying. in its place rests the harmonic resonance of wholeness.
love is quite like this.
at least, the only kind of love i truly desire.
it is a kind of love available to everybody, but not all choose the path that leads there.
really, there are only two paths available to us in this life. the path of fear, and the path of love. upon external glance, they are easily confused one for the other. but as one inquires as to which they are walking, illusions fade away. clarity prevails.
the path of fear says, “you will receive the best life has to offer. all you must do is conform! go on ~ begin to check your boxes one by one. first, educate yourself, then make the hustle your primary concern, find someone to marry and build a family with, complete all bucket list items during retirement, and come to terms with your own mortality before your last breath. voila! a life worth living.” it is a one-size fits all that simply does not fit most. but people try to squeeze into it anyway. people want to belong. they want to be accepted by the tribe, not rejected from it. and so begets a life of dissatisfaction, of regret, of frustration. this is what fear does to us ~ it keeps in perpetual tension. but we have the stable job, the house, the spouse, and the babies. we truly ‘have it all’, don’t we?
the path of love is tumultuous and volatile. it is the path of authenticity. often, it is not pretty. it reveals to us what is ugly and what is unwanted. what is shameful and painful. these revelations serve as invitations for release, so that which lies beneath may be fully exposed. fully seen. it is a path that appears unstable, for it is constantly growing… changing… adapting… evolving. an inescapable consequence of its quest for truth + expansion, its unbridled honesty unto itself. but this is the way to the heart of the home. it is comfort in acceptance as opposed to stagnancy. the velveteen rabbit sums it up in the most quintessential way:
“You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
the buddhists say that all life is suffering. a bold claim; an inarguable truth.
however, it is not all doom + gloom. we have the opportunity to choose the result of our suffering. it becomes a matter of applauded compliance vs. evolution. along the path of obedience to authority outside of ourselves, we experience the shallow joy of validation; we suffer from neglecting the seat of the soul. along the path of following our intuitive heart’s desires, we suffer from being misunderstood and potentially exiled, but we experience life as the vibrant, nourishing journey it was intended to be.
very early on, i knew that the path of fear was not for me. this doesn’t mean i immediately began walking the path of love. they tend to weave in and out of one another, but they fail at fooling each other. it can’t be a game of hide-and-seek when they are permeant energies, always felt no matter how invisible they seem to be. regardless of how small + infrequent the stepping stones of fear one tries to sneak in, fear will continue to dominate until is let go of completely. the path of love - and the tender, delectable gifts to be discovered there - only appear when it is completely surrendered to. there is no tip-toeing, there is no shuffling; there are only humble + kind, full + embodied steps.
my favorite glimmers of hope along the path of love are the love bubbles themselves.
they enter through my periphery completely unexpectedly. soft, luminous, mesmerizing. they are great tests, for they are incredibly fragile. the path of love asks that i observe them carefully. i stand in awe + appreciation. but always, there is the path of fear crawling up my spine, demanding i reach out and touch it. hold it. but look what happens as a result - poof. suds rain down as it fails to exist as what i loved so dearly. like osho says, “if you love a flower, do not pick it up. because if you pick it up, it dies and it ceases to be what you love. so if you love a flower, let it be. love is not about possession. love is about appreciation.”
the love bubbles. the perfect reminders that with the release of control, there is mystic magic all around. moreover, when we let go… when we are truly truly truly true, we, too, float freely, fully, merrily.
yes… yes! life is but a dream.