This photograph was taken a while ago whilst I was looking at someone I was deeply in love with at the time. Said person has since left my life leaving me nurturing a wounded heart, flaying in the spaciousness their loss left in my life. Learning to be true to myself and what I am feeling.

It has taken a long time to thoroughly heal from this loss. I am however a little more humbled, wiser to the wisdom of loss and love.

How love and loss are so closely linked.

Fearing to love fully for fear of losing.

Loosing before we have therefore even loved.

Loving the idea of love instead of actually getting out there and loving, emerging the self deeply in life.

It is what we are here to do. Love. Stories and limitations imposed by self and other, creating walls and hesitations.

Love opens us up to opportunities that if we remain closed pass us by. Love allows us to shine, to forgive, to meet, to be met. Love is the medicine for the soul in all things. Touch, love, a warm embrace. Love is the place of acceptance, it also allows change. It is compassion, it is passion, creation and it gives us the spirit to fight for what we ‘love’ and believe in.

I’m not talking just about romantic love but LOVE as a whole. Love that encourages us to hold the hand of a friend when they are in distress. To give to others. To care for ourselves. To want to make a difference. To also relinquish the ‘need’ for ‘having to’.

Love opens us to gratitude for the big and small things in life. Love opens us to wonder at all that is around us in nature. Love drives us to want to be the best we can be. To surrender to the flow. To cease projecting, expecting. To weave our threads of purpose into the complexities of life. To honour our earth and all its inhabitants.

The Greeks have 8 words for love. Us? Just one. We bracket everything under this one word ‘love’ it holds a heavy burden of expectation. It is no wonder we can shy or run away from it, racing away at full pelt without a backwards glance. We use it out of context, misinterpret it, long for it, block it. All these and more from the one ‘simple’ word of ‘love’.

Love is by no means ‘simple’ it is a myriad of things. For me, I often misinterpret it. Still finding my way to recognise the nuances that play out in my life, my heart. Learning the differences of what love means for me. It is a journey. It requires a brave soul and heart, a willingness to open to feel, to dare and to get it wrong. Which I often do.

For women our womb and heart are deeply linked and connected. How often do we misinterpret lust for love? That warm feeling that opens the body and heart stemming from a deep desire for intimate connection? Lustful?

I have indeed found myself in relationships unaware of this differentiation wondering why I was not truly happy. I was trying to create something that was not there. It was ‘meant’ to be something different to what I was ‘making’ it to be.

For many of us women, the longing of our loins can activate our hearts leading us to believe we are in love when actually we are lust and feeling wanton. Yes, both can be linked which is great. But can you actually discern the difference?

Women are designed to procreate thus our hearts open to sex. We are ‘designed’ to have babies there ‘should’ be a heart connection when this magic and miracle happens. This and the perception of women as sexual beings blurs the primal aspect that we as women are also sexual beings with wants, desires and lustful thoughts and needs. How often when we have shown our fullness in this are have we been shamed back into the darkness told you’re ‘too much’ ‘sluttish’ etc etc Or taken only to be ‘passed over’ for a nicer girl?

We can hold all. The ‘good’, the wanton, the bitch, witch. It’s imperative to know them, own them and give them space else the shadow aspects play out in manipulation, control, greed.

I know I’m myself I long to be met and meet where I am all of myself. This takes me being ALL of who I am. Women and men just being who we are. ALL of us. Surely this is the greatest path to love? To open to be honest, to show up in all our glory, all our faults and find love for them?

I know that the person I was looking at in this photo loved me deeply. Yet, it was a codependent love. Both of us not speaking out or being our true selves. This realisation comes from time, space, much reflection and deep compassion for myself and them.

Love comes, takes us, opens us up and invites authenticity. I invite it in all forms. Love take me as yours and do with me as you will so I can mirror that and bring that to life.

Thank you
Thank you
Thank you