What We Call Love

artwork by James R. Eads

What We Call Love

And this thing that we call love defines the undefinable. It is all that remains when we take away the fear. The most simple and yet the most divine adventure we have. Each day we experience love many thousand times as we take a breath. Each breath a celebration of who we are and this beautiful life.

When we find this space inside our own beating hearts, and welcome in the wild depths of our being, everything changes. There is colour where it was once grey and black and white. What was baron feels like an ocean so wide and so deep we can’t find the edges, and we know that we never will. For it’s endless, ever expanding outside of what we could imagine.

We have trudged through our darkness, our loneliness and despair. We searched outside of ourselves for a way to numb the fear. We closed our hearts to feel safe, until we reached the moment where we just knew it was time to open to our deepest possibility.

Each time our heart cracks open, we let in more of this expanse and it resonates through every cell of our being as truth. This love is the only truth our hearts know. This living truth brings us into presence. A place where we are enough, where time slows down, and where what we do and how we feel ripples out into the world we stand in, amplifying the natural experience of connection and belonging.

And then, when two people who are versed in this art of knowing home in themselves, are brought together, and their souls meet through their eyes in recognition. They choose to rise together. To sing to each others hearts. To nurture and support each other as they grow. To laugh, cry and play. This bond is unshakable when it comes from that purity that is love. None of that you complete me illusion. No resentment or expectations that cannot be met. No need to own or control, but simply share. Share the dance of the hearts beating as one.

It’s the alchemy that two people create when they are willing to look at each other and see all the magic, all the potential, all the mistakes, shadows and suffering of this human being before them and say “I love all that you are. I stand here without fear.

Your authenticity, the whole you is what opens up my heart. This vibration of truth makes me want to create a life with you.”

You see, you don’t get lost in love, you become present.

You feel more alive. The beauty is clear, vivid. Your masks are stripped away. There is no hiding. As you look into the reflection in your lovers’ eyes, what you see is your future and your truth, with this depth of colour that you haven’t known before. All those dreams that seemed scary or impossible feel right, now. The seeds can be planted. Their love waters your garden and helps you to bloom. Your gardens unite. You commit to a lifetime of surprising each other with your greatness. There is a light that goes on that perhaps has been silently awaiting this illumination since it’s creation, a spark that connects to another spark and creates something electric, alchemical, unbreakable.

This is the thing that we call love.

**** This was written for my dear friends wedding to share as part of their ceremony. You can listen to this on allthatweare wesbite.