As we enter the month of Valentines Day, let’s contemplate Love…the blood red, transformative, powerful Love. In its magnificence, it is inviting you ~ no, insisting – that you meet its call to greatness, no matter what.

Love is essentially Self-love. Know thySelf. Fill your cup – you can’t give from an empty vessel.

Love is a blissfull, sweet, fulfilling teacher and a brutally raw, crushing reminder. It teaches us the hardest lessons in life at both ends of the spectrum – shadow and light.

Love brings into sight the things we didn’t want or dare to see about our Self; the things that we had hidden in the deepest, darkest shadows, away from the prying eyes of society. Love also brings to attention such beauty we thought to be beyond our reach – the most glorious, magical, powerful Light.

Love is the great artist, working on the material of Life, with such intensity that the transformation is etched in our Soul, never to be forgotten again. It radiates from within and embraces us from the outside in an all enveloping glow, expanding the Heart wide open. …feel that space, feel it in your energy; the expanded, radiant, great shining Heart.

And the flow of energy in Life? Sometimes we experience flow as “this is my Path, this is what I have chosen, how I choose to be and live in this lifetime.” When the of flow Life goes as we wanted, it is very satisfying in its smoothness; nothing gets in our way, we flow forward as we had envisioned, steady, strong, self-assured. We create, build, expand and forge new connections.

But when the current of flow is wild it breaks off chunks of our riverbanks, reshaping the way our life stream used to run. There are obstacles, lessons to learn. It’s a wild ride, the flow is bumpy and we can’t see what’s ahead, we’re so focussed in surviving the here and now, concentrating on just staying on the back of the energy dragon that is giving this wild ride along a path we never had explored before. This is where our strength is tested and lessons are learned. We get tossed against painful rocks, get submerged in emotion, gasping for breath when we can and again get torn through the currents with an incredible intensity. It’s powerful, it’s raw and it’s very real…We wouldn’t want to miss it for the world for the great treasures it delivers, but we also wouldn’t wish it to someone else, because it is almost too much.

But Life is always in a flux. After the wild waters we find a smoother flow and we get to rest. We’ve changed. There’s something new about the energy, our posture, poise… our awareness. We’ve grown. Grown stronger, wiser, deeper in our understanding of the workings of Life and more compassionate, more loving.

And now it’s time to live fully!

But wait, the pain… Pain? When we experience pain, or its little sister, frustration, it is quite simply a sign of the absence of Now. Our focus is either lingering in memories past, or in dreams of the future.

The most powerful remedy I find to the wrenching emotional pain is Gratitude – for what IS already, right now.

A powerful, effective medicine practise is to write down a gratitude list, daily for a while, of all the things you’re grateful for. And to re-read it to yourself every now and then.

So…what’s next? How about standing on the top of the mountain you’ve just climbed, taking in the view you’ve gained. Feeling the power in your Earthly vessel, the body, and the expanded awareness in your energyfield. Perhaps, if you like, change perspective, and view yourself standing here through the eyes of your higher Self, your grander Self. And give a loving hug to your Self – well done my dear, you’ve come this far. Such adventures, experiences, treasures – well done.

Now take a breather before you go on. Incorporate (!) the lessons, let them sink in, releasing what is no longer needed, creating space for the new. The path ahead is wide and bright, from now on we walk together, as a tribe. The time of the solitary warrior is past. Welcome back, welcome home, to belonging, together, in this tribe.

I’m offering online Gatherings in (very!) small groups again. Learn more here.

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