Love is as scary as death. And, trust me friends, love lasts longer than death. So keep your eye on it.

I’ve been making my to-do lists. Change of seasons. I’m checking things off and so many are left undone. I sit with myself and work to stay open to feeling. My small mind says it’s about not getting to go to the lake or not having someone to help me haul junk, fix a leak, whatever. Why shouldn’t I be upset by unresponsiveness where a response was wanted? My small mind is full of high excuse. But my high mind recognizes it as a fear of being unlovable. And I start feeling “has God forgotten me? Am I a disappointment? A failure?” And I ask with my mind’s eye, where’s my heart? And then I feel it.

The pain of rejection, the pain of alienation, the pain of neglect are real pains of life. Because we are not meant to feel separate from love. The pain should steer us toward that knowing; we should avoid the false knowing of rejection and acceptability. We can mourn the loss of recognition that comes with personal love, but only so long as we don’t take it personally. The sense of being unlovable is a fault of the human condition. All sorts of crimes are committed under that sickness.

My aunt started a pen pal relationship with a woman in jail who hadn’t received a letter in 12 years. She’s 56 years old and 12 years into a 75 year jail term. She was ill and put into intensive care and moved to the hospital in the jail for further recovery. She came through and wrote that God had given her a second chance at life. Love found her, lost and forgotten as she was, trapped behind bars with no hope of the scene ever changing.

I won’t say “all we need is love.” We have seven chakras for a reason. But if you cannot feel love at any moment in space or time, you have strayed from the path. The Universe can always meet you where you are. And it has love in it. It has desire and containment and any other flavor you’d like.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.

From Essential Rumi
by Coleman Barks

I heard one way to ask your higher self a question is to write it in a journal that you keep by your bed before going to sleep at night. So last night I wrote “let me dream about love and wake up remembering.” I wanted a story. Instead, I woke up in the night with the following words clear in my head: “I love existing. Thank you for my existence.” So that’s the message from my higher self.

Moments after those words faded, I was in my petty concerns. How will I make enough money to be able to travel? Did I pay my car insurance bill yet? I woke up in the morning not wanting to go to work for the day, wondering what I needed to get done and what I’d rather be doing.

Somwhere I live below the rippling waves of day-to-day negotiations.

I just walked the creek and there is a new clearing. I thought it odd that landscapers would have cleared that section, but realized it must have been washed-out by the rains. It was undergrowth and trees. Now it’s soft sandy sediment.

I spent the last week on vacation visiting family in Tennessee and North Carolina. It was my first visit to my Mom’s house; the first house she’s had of her own. I have been taking a bit of pride in my own empathy, but I couldn’t feel anything from her. It made me feel nervous and insecure, which is a spiral of projection and I worked to stop it. I have a chest cold, so doing release breathing has been a challenge this week.

My mother is perfect. Others marvel at how she has managed to style her home completely, kitchen remodel included, within just a year of moving in. Her garden is vibrant. Her cakes and pies are perfect. And she at 70 is still beautiful. My family wonders at how much my Mom can get done in a day. “She works until the sun goes down and starts as soon as it comes up” my Aunt told me. I understand the compulsion. When you are doing, there’s no need to feel. There’s a next step to take; a justifying of existence. Like skidding on the surface of oblivion.

There is something I would like to share with her that I accept I never may. There is something I want her to see in herself and her relationship to others that I cannot articulate. Truth is when you fear judgment of others, you radiate judgment of others. Simpler yet: perfection is admirable, but not likable.

On our visit, she took my daughter to the pool and I sat alone and could see four crosses and one crucifix displayed in her house without turning my head. I wondered what it felt like for her, living with all those crosses. And I thought about asking her but realized it was a question she wouldn’t have been able to answer in the way I wanted to ask it.

The next evening we visited my sister. My girl ran around her house chasing the cats and dogs and we talked a bit about work experiences. It was a relaxing evening. And when we got back to my Mom’s house, my Mom offered to sleep on the floor.

I told her no, of course, and it dawned on me that for her love is sacrifice. Her life tells the story. Maybe she has held on to the hope that love is something she would like it to be and not that which it is: a force all its own. I don’t know. I do know that love isn’t a judgment. Love isn’t discriminating. Love is never a sacrifice. Love has a life of its own.

I want to share something with you. There is a lot of intense cosmic energy going around these days. Seems we are all being challenged to be more open-hearted.

I don’t generally do guided meditations, but if you’d like after you read this sit and give it a try and leave a comment to let me know how it worked for you.

Remember a time you were in the most beautiful landscape you can recall. The beach, the mountains, the desert. Whatever the case may be. Remember what the air felt like. Remember what the sky looked like. Remember the sound and feeling of that space. Feel what a lack of responsibility you have for making it happen. Feel how you had to do nothing but appear to experience the magic of it all. There is nothing that needed to be done.

Then imagine that the landscape around you feels the same sense of wonder at your existence, the same sense of appreciation that you are here.