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| The Princess & the Dragon. Illustratiion by Marina WIld |
There is an image of
passionate love where two hearts touch like golden bells and resonate and send the
singing dinging donging song of their passion out across the spheres of time
and space. It is an apt description, for to fall in love is to live a moment in the timeless wondrous myths
of our species: heart meets heart, soul embraces soul, all obstacles are
overcome as two people begin the incredible adventure to who knows where.
But like all the great sagas,
that of romantic passionate love is as strewn as any with dangers and pit falls and pathways guarded by trolls and dragons and the more wicked members
of the fairy folk. Much of these impediments are of our own making, not least because
it is scary suddenly becoming two and all that necessitates: compromises,
changes, the intimate awareness that another person’s hope and dreams are now
as much a part of your heart as your own.
Yet, in actual fact we have
all of us been involved in the business of falling in love and resonating with
others from the moment we were born and folded up into the embrace of our
mother and father. Our new born heart, that little pebble sized muscle, resonated
with love from the moment we took our first breath. As we grew our ability to
feel love - and to wonder and to empathise - grew too, for our extended family,
friends and pets. And as our capacity for love grew so too did our capacity to
give love, to feel for others and share and exchange our tales of wonder and
curiosity.
Love is hard wired into us. It
is not limited by colour, ability, gender, sexuality, body shape, religion,
ideology or whether you are tall with thinning hair or short with hair like a lion’s
mane. Love is part of human nature. If falling in love seems a little scary and
the journey ahead daunting, then perhaps it’s best to ignore the future, let
the days ahead look after themselves, and instead enjoy the moment, live in the
now, talk and listen, laugh and console, make silly faces and serious ones,
play with love the way children play with twigs or stones.
Love can be anything we want
it to be and with it we can do incredible things: we can be still and
reflective or loud and whizzing about like super heroes, or - and perhaps this
is the best of all - we can simply be totally idiotic with love.
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Related articles:
Falling
in Love, Staying romanticTo give and receive love...
The Princess and the Dragon
How do I learn to love?
Telling someone you like them
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