On Love. Ramblings on a November full moon

Earlier tonight I wrote what I thought was a beautiful and well thought out post on love…but I wrote it on Facebook and when I went to post? It vanished. It’s a lesson in where I need to do my writing and editing and where I should share, yes?

But anyway, about love. Love, not in the fraternal sense, not the love you feel for friends and family and your children, but romantic love. These words on love will likely apply to all different varieties of love and affection because, at its core, love is just…love.

I am of the opinion, and my 6 decades of life have proved this out for me, that love rises and it stays. It might change form, and it always changes in tone and level and intesity because we are human and living in bodies that are here, having this experience of living and learning and trying to be decent human beings. Besides, jolding onto the New Relationship Energy just doesn’t happen. Love drops in. It matures. And it deepens in myriad lovely, complicated, intricate ways.

During my years on this earth I have been through many kinds of romantic relastionships. It’s not quite a ‘you name it, I’ve tried it’ scenario, but I’ve covered an expanse. Marriages. Long term committed things. Short term committments. Short term flings. Dating multiple people at the same time with no commitments. Celebacy. One night stands. Been cheated on and I’ve done my share of not quite above board things. I’ve had my heart broken and broken and broken and, if I’m telling you the truth, I’ll take that over not loving. I guess I’ve broken hearts, too. Weird that I never thought about that before this moment.

I believe that the only way to love is no holds barred, no armor, no protection, bleeding beating heart right out there on the ground to be trampled or tended, because, you never know, it might, finally be tended to by someone with a gentle hand. And if not? If trampling is what happens? You loved. You loved. I cannot imagine anything else.

And you get to do it your way! Break the rules. Make up some new ones. Fuck rules and have none (but be clear about it!) Be a wayshower. Blaze new trails through the cosmos.

You do not have to adhere to the gender binary.

You do not have to be monogamous.

You don’t have to live with your beloved or sit on the couch watching tv with them every night.

You do not have to go along with anything that feels wrong or alien or bad or weird to you. You love who and how and when you love. you get to choose it. (And to be clear, I’m talking about love here, not abuse or any situation where choice isn’t an option.)

Allow your heart to show the way. It knows. And your body knows, too. If you can learn to check in with what your body is telling you: run; kiss; hide; hug; etc? It will tell you everything, even when your heart is confused as fuck. It happens.

Which leads me to another thing, no shame. We all make bad decisions. We, well, most of us, have been in the NRE and confused it for love. And you know what? It’s okay to decide that you need to go in a different direction. I’m not advocating for breaking heart after heart in search of the perfect human, mostly because we are all the most perfect versions of ourselves already and if you’re thinking that your one true love is a set of external features or characteristics rather than the person who you can feel walk into a room? The person who your heart just cannot let go of? The person who has your back when you don’t have your own? Then you have a long way to go and a lot to learn because buddy? That ain’t love.

Sometimes love changes, or life changes, and you move in a different direction than a beloved but that doesn’t mean the love is gone. It just altered into a different sort of love, maybe something deep and abiding but not romantic or partnership or lover kind of love. I’m like this with many of my ex-lovers and my first husband (I think my second husband and I are getting there, which feels really good). When I see these old flames, we say, “I love you,’ and understand it to mean that our romantic deal is done but what we felt was so real that we will always have a kind of friendly, kind, supportive love between us, that we will hope for the other’s happiness and that they are happy in whatever romantic love they’ve moved onto.

Can you imagine telling someone that you love them, even if you are uncertain of what their response will be? Can you be so open, so unguarded, so vulnerable that you can say, “I love you,’ and be glad you said it, regardless of whether you hear it in return or not? Imagine just offering that love out there, openly, clearly, without agenda. Imagine what might happen. (Another caveat, don’t be weird about it. Read the room. Check your timing. And, because this is about romantic love for lack of a more available term, you already know this person, you’ve built a relationship with them of some sort. You have dated them. If you’re confused about whether or not it is love or a crush or if you think you might be rushing in, google NRE.)

Here’s the all about me part and it involves astrology. I am a Pisces Ascendant, Pisces is what I’m here to do. The spiritual deep dive. And I’m a Cancer Sun and Moon. More water. I am an emotional tidal wave and also the depths of the emotional ocean. I can go from pouty to matter of fact in nothing flat. But more than that, these planets and angles are all in astrological houses ruled by firey planets. This adds a spark and a ferocity to that shamanic deep dive. Through in a very potently placed Jupiter in Taurus in the third house—fast track to life’s juiciness in the sign of the earthy tantrika and the epicurean, spiced with the flavor of what is sometimes called, ‘The Joy of the Moon,’ the house of communication, interpersonal connection, and our closest relationships. Of course I think everyone should lead from the heart.

Maybe it’s just not for you. That’s okay. I’m sharing thoughts not rules for people to abide by.

I’ll tell you though, there is no accounting for where our hearts lead us and, for me anyway, there’s no directing or controlling it. My heart is at the front, knows it, and has fully taken on it’s role as leader of my body and mind tribe of interconnected systems and parts.

If there’s one thing I’ve done in the past month it is to explore this, excavate it, play devil’s advocate, and, honestly, fall into a depression for days that had me flat out in bed most of the time…because she, my heart, will not be denied. There is no use in pretending.

A lot of folks have checklists for what they want in a partner. Boxes to tick. Agendas that must be met. Perhaps I do too, it’s this: Does my body say yes to this person? A full-on, absolute, fuck yes? And when I stand or sit or lie chest to chest with this person what happens to my heart? Does it reach toward them or simply sit there beating?

Loving someone, to me, feels like an unbreakable bond. Like my heart, possibly, has moved out of my chest and now lives in the beloved. Like surrender, and surrender isn’t easy, but surrender of everything I am able to release and continuing this task of dismantling ego and control and fear and dropping fully into trust that whatever comes is the right thing.

What is love, after all? I suspect it is different for different people. To some it might feel like financial safety, to others it might feel like calm.

I am certain that you can’t beat it by taking yourself to task for all of the shoulds. If you know me, you may have heard me call this ‘shoulding on yourself,’ or, ‘shoulding on someone else.’ It is pointless. Especially if, like me, you are a voyager looking for that one bright signal fire leading you home.