This morning I awake and I am thinking about love. There seems to be so little of it in the world any more. I wonder about love and how do we know we are ready to give or receive in a way that is conducive to the wholeness of our hearts.

We say love is unconditional but is that possible for the human heart? Is it possible to love another completely accepting all of their foibles? love has been written about, sang about and talked about. Many have killed for it, died for it yet its definition remains elusive. We speak of the love for our beloved as lasting forever, till the end of time. We stand at altars professing our love until death we do part. Yet it fades and we are left to wonder if we stopped loving or did we ever truly love.

To truly love is to first love ourselves for to give to another that greatest gift we must first possess it to give. The initial attraction we see love in the eyes of our desired. We look upon him or her as the one heaven is built upon but alas one day the scales are lifted from our eyes. We see the faults. We see the one as they truly are and for some it comes as a rude awakening. We begin to take the one we cherished and valued for granted. The voice that used to soothe our ears has now become akin to the sound of chalk on a board. We have lost our way and our connection.

Love is heartfelt. It is giving and being emotionally vulnerable. It is the tearing down of walls that block communication. It is exposing our weaknesses and openess to another claiming our vulnerability. We may risk ridicule or hurt but in love we are accepted. Our shadow selves, our dark days and our faults are seen. With seeing our own dark we also can see the other in a reciprocal manner and work towards mending and healing our history of wounds. Without doing our own work and coming to our own place of healing and wholeness we are not capable of being whole for another.

Love is not only for the romantic it is for all of us who inhabit this planet with one another. It is our shared humanity and aids us in our collective healing and growth.