7/11/12—Redefining What Love Is

Today's Draw: The King of Disks from the Mary-El Tarot by Marie White. Is there a time and place for feeling and expressing love? Is there a limit to the number or type of things that can fill you with love? What if you found out the biggest thing limiting the amount of love you have in your life is your own prejudices about what can and can't be love?

Copyright 1997-2011 Marie White, All Rights Reserved.

For a country as progressive and advantaged and free as the United States, I have to say I think we're pretty repressed and myopic when it comes to love. Not sex, mind you. But love. I don't know if that's the case for people in other countries or not. 

What I'm getting at here is that there are many social conventions about expressing love and affection in this country. During work hours, it's considered unprofessional. You have to have good reasons to break away and spend time with your children. And "because you love them" isn't an acceptable reason. In public places, there is a line you don't cross when displaying affection. We literally have a societal rule about "public displays of affection".

So expressions of love and affection are generally reserved for our private time. But even there, friends and family shy away from it because expressing love and receiving love is uncomfortable for some people. But even if it's not, we usually wait for a moment when we're not eating or preparing dinner, putting the kids in pajamas, or any of the other stuff that we do. Some couples actually schedule their romantic time. And those are the smart ones. 

For me personally, I sometimes think "I'll snuggle with Magick Moonbeam when I'm done with XYZ". Then I usually forget. There's always something that needs to be done before love happens. It's rarely spontaneous, a priority or of imminent importance. It's the thing we save for the end of the day (when we're too tired to do it.) I'm putting in a conscious effort to correct that.

The reason I bring all of this up is that there's a complex series of "rules" and factors of timing and propriety that color our moments of expressing and receiving love in our society. But scroll back up and look at this King of Disks. Do you think he cares about propriety? The way he's eating that apple, you know he's making it a sensuous experience...savoring the pleasure of every bite. We talked about that on Monday...about stopping and consciously feeling the love that's offered to you.

But the other part of what I see in the card is that he's spontaneous and using each moment as an expression of his sensuality...his experiencing the pleasures of life. And he doesn't just limit those pleasures to human interactions. Anything can trigger his sensuality. And anything can trigger your love.

When it comes down to it, there is no time of the day that you can't and shouldn't feel love. And there is no priority greater. Feeling loved and loving is a choice you make that you can extend to all around you. And you can find love in everything. You can express love through the way you work...you can do it with love. Getting a pat on the back—or even a criticism—can be an act of love. Taking a co-worker out to lunch can be an act of love. The choices you make buying groceries can be an act of love. Driving home carefully can be an act of love. In short, love can be a part of everything you do. If you let it.

Again, not all love is romantic love. And romantic love isn't the only kind of love with value. Thinking otherwise is the same kind of societal brainwashing that exists in thinking there's a time and place for being a loving creature. I have no husband and no kids and I'd wager I *feel* more love and consciously express more love than most married parents. It's all in how you allow yourself to define love. Lock it in a box with roses, chocolates and romantic trips to Paris and your heart will suffer long periods of starvation. But count things like sunshine, a good hair day and dogs that miss you when you're gone as expressions of love and your heart will always be fully nourished.