ACK!! I am falling behind. For two days in a row I am writing yesterday’s entry today. I have no problem what so ever in blaming this on the full moon. I felt her pull well over a week ago. KNEW, that this one was going to be life changing.
I have hardly slept since Thursday. Because of this I set myself a very strict guideline last night, that I must go home as soon as the sun began to rise. I had to get at least a few hours before the kids woke up! I danced in the living room of a home that was opened to the community for an all night full moon celebration. I did sleep a bit, 20 feet from where the DJ was mixing, intertwined and snuggled up on a couch, bass bumping through my dreams. I was surrounded by so many loving friends, some I knew, some I didn’t, some old, some very very new. I drove home at 4:00 a.m. listening to the birds waking, taunting me with there full nights sleep, and to country music, it was the only station I could find. Twang works as good as anything else to keep one awake!
I was given the question for today (yesterday?) by the bass, entering my sub conscious mind, by the encouragement of friends who conspire towards my success, by the gentle absentminded touch of a friend on a couch. This question did not come by email, it came, as my friend Philip would say, by T-mail. Telepathic mail indeed. I got the message from you all, you light beings so filled with love. That what you want to know, what you want answered, what you wanted discussed, pondered, laid out in the light for all to caress, is the question, “What is love?”.
I have heard an argument that love is merely a chemically induced reaction to increase chances of survival, to live long enough to propagate our species. While not wildly romantic, it does make logical sense. Love is chemicals...this would explain the popularity of chemical drugs. While I can concede that chemicals play a role, I KNOW that there is more to it than this. I have heard it said that God is Love, pure and simple. That our source, what makes us all one, is Love. THIS I believe. Still though it does not help me to understand that deep feeling when sometimes despite all logic or rational thought I KNOW I love someone. Especially that deep intense feeling of romantic love, or the feeling of deep love when a baby is born. It doesn’t make me understand love at first sigh, how in one glance I can feel love. At first glance today’s question may seem like a simple one, but I wonder if it won’t be one of the hardest to answer. I looked up love in the dictionary. Random House has 14 hits on “Love” in its usage as a noun alone!
Love –noun
1.a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.
2.a feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection, as for a parent, child, or friend.
3.sexual passion or desire.
4.a person toward whom love is felt; beloved person; sweetheart.
5.(used in direct address as a term of endearment, affection, or the like): Would you like to see a movie, love?
6.a love affair; an intensely amorous incident; amour.
7.sexual intercourse; copulation.
8.(initial capital letter) a personification of sexual affection, as Eros or Cupid.
9.affectionate concern for the well-being of others: the love of one's neighbor.
10.strong predilection, enthusiasm, or liking for anything: her love of books.
11.the object or thing so liked: The theater was her great love.
12.the benevolent affection of God for His creatures, or the reverent affection due from them to God.
13.Chiefly Tennis. a score of zero; nothing.
14.a word formerly used in communications to represent the letter L.
“The object or thing so liked” Sigh.... I love this one, so poetic. I am reminded of the quote “I don’t know art but I know what I like”. I can’t tell you definitively what love is, but I know when I am in it.
Since this question came in from the masses, it needs to be sent out the same way. I will take 12 days journal #54 next time I go to a party or event where many of my lovely friends will be. I will give it to someone that I love. I may not be able to tell them what this love is exactly, but I will KNOW that I love them....this is enough.
I was reading through those definitions, nodding my head, going, "yeah, yeah, got it," but the tennis definition suddenly made me stop dead in my tracks.
ReplyDeleteA score of zero; nothing.
I immediately read "a score" as the traditional 20. 20 of zero, 20 of nothing. Wow. We always say love is everything, but in this context, love is nothing, love is zero. I don't know what it means, but it's given me something to think about...
I believe that the origin of the word used this way is "L'oeuf" French for egg, which suggests something quite different from nothing, and does really have a connection to love!
ReplyDeleteI think that love is hard to recognise sometimes because it's what we live in, always, everywhere, but the other things get in the way. Of course if we could include all the other things we wouln't have to go looking for love because it's who we are and what we live in.So, maybe the only thing that is not love is forgetting what is, and if we could include that.....
For many years, I read only non-fiction. It seemed that there was much to learn, and non-fiction was about facts and truth. Fiction on the other hand was made up. Why squander my time reading falsehoods. (ah, the earnest folly of youth)
ReplyDeleteIt wasn't until my late twenties that I discovered what is was that fiction had to offer. Fiction, it turned out, is about the human condition. It is about people, their tribulations and joys. It was through reading fiction, that I came to understand my place in the world. Fiction introduced me to my connection to the human race, the things that bind us, our similarities and differences. In short, reading fiction taught me to love.
Love is fiction.
;-)
Or to be less opaque about it:
ReplyDeleteLove is the sense that the object of my love
(person, place or thing)
has much to teach me about who I am,
and what it is to be alive.