Lessons in Love

In this series I delve into an innate connection with poetry and creative expression. It has been a long while since I last wrote from the heart, and really indulged in poetry as a creative outlet.

I consider myself to be an extremely deep feeler, an emotional body that experiences every colour the world has to offer. I love it, all the pain and all the joy. It colours my existance and has brough me so much wisdom in my time here thus far. I wish to share my experience, my voice, and my inspiration with others so that they might be inspired too. It is my desire that by creating from a place of love and authenticity, that I inspire the same in others, and guide them in exploring what that looks like for them. Each story is unique, and every voice deserves to be heard.

For a long time I did not speak out. I have been quietly dimming my light as many of us do as we navigate growing up in a world that seems to favour those who blend in. We try to speak certain phrases, dress a certain way, identify with belief systems and practices that might not actually serve us, but what are deemed normal and accepted. Being the one to go left at the fork in the road when the crowd turns right, and standing true in your convictions when it can feel like the entire world makes no attempt at empathy, nor acceptance, is a choice to stand in truth and sovereignty, when many fall into story. Finding one's own voice in such a loud and busy world can be quite a daunting journey. Yet it can also be one of profound self discovery and a reclaiming of what really belongs to us: our own unique expression.

This post is the first of it's kind! I am writing as if in my own journal, so it might not be "perfect English," if there is such a thing. It is as obscure, colourful and raw as ever.

I will now begin with a revelation that came to me mid morning on a busy Wednesday.

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Chosing a life of love is not for the faint of heart. It presents in many forms, family, friends, animals, nature, and everywhere in between. Here, I will touch specifically on romantic love, for it is what I dream of.

With love comes faith, comes trust, comes honour, expansion, and freedom. With love comes vulnerability, the choice to bear your soul to another so deeply, heart in hand, intertwined in cosmic connection.

The presence of love allows us a direct line of connection to the divine, where there are no lines between what we dream of and what is possible. Where there are no hooks, manipulations, and backwards ways in which we must prove ourselves worthy of such love. We simply are.

There is immesurable wealth in this life experience of love. It is the space where our deepest truths to be mirrored back to us in each breath. Where our wounds are exposed and our warriors are called upon to heal them. Love is our single most greatest teacher.

It is my religion. One I have become devoted to more so than ever in recent moments of my time here on this earth. I have loved so hard I was sure my heart would explode. Loved in ways I never loved myself, loved in ways I never dreamt could be reflected back to me. But they were, in so many ways, they were.

Love came to me in my youth, founded on friendshp and the mutual exploration of the in betweenness of adolescence and adulthood. We were so fond of one another, endlesslly fascinated by the possibilities of the future, and full of excitement of the journey ahead. We were so young, unafraid and nieve to the ways of the world. Neither of us knew who we were just yet, and it so happened that worldly events highlighted some major foundational differences for us. Neither of us were willing to compromise our beliefs either, and we still would not be. It would seem our journeys were destined to chose opposing sides at that fork in the road. We were destined to be with each other in the beginning, catalyzing a deep expansion into personal discovery and maturation, and it was not meant to last into the next chapter.

Love came to me again through mutual friends, where adventure, expression, and fun marked a short and turbulent season. Our deepest values were so paralleled, yet they would never intersect to co create a dream. In fact our dreams turned our to be seperate completely. I was asked to become something I am not, something I would never identify with, giving up my own beliefs and truth in the process. I was asked to adopt a new religion, and was told "you know, none of that is real," after sharing a deep vision I had recieved during ceremony under a full moon. Love became sin, sensuality and pleasure something rooted in sin. I knew so fast that this was not for me. Part of my soul felt a wound poked so deeply I must have seen somehow in a past life. Perhaps I had a witch ancestor who was burned at the stake for chosing to love in a different way society demanded of her. He could not understand that our two truths could co exist, and neither was better than the other. Our connection served as a recalibration so that each of us were reminded to chose our own truths. To seek partnership in what is truly aligned, and gracefully let go of what is not.

I had a love soon after that was not true love, not really. It was more of a curiosity than anything, both sides well aware that it would never last. It was a light hearted time nonetheless, where dance, laughter and uncertainty created a storm cloud of passion and realization. Indulging in said curiosity distracted me from healing the truth underneath it. I wanted to be in real, deep love. In all honesty I did not love myself enough at the time to chose to be alone, rather than pretending something may possibly one day be there with yet another person when I knew from the beginning there would not be.

I chose to seek love within myself, chose to be alone in that way. I chose to get to know, love, and express myself. I knew that in time my king would call to me, and I, his queen, would then have the capacity to meet him. I spent a long time building that love, connecting to my truth. I healed past pains and moved through the newness of chosing myself out of devotion and honour, rather than judgement.

My queen became louder, and my goddess came forth with grace and wisdom. Both archetypes reminding me to be grounded in the art of love, indulging in it's creative expression, and remaining forever bewildered by the beauty of the world. Like I was in childhood. Here, I was slowly connecting back to self.

Then, oh then, love came to me as a young naïve woman like a whirlwind. Amid starlight and the twang of a new country song, we collided. Hearts racing, our bodies merged in a delicious soup of what I know now to be no more than desire. I was lost in the fireworks. It is true, this love ignited the depths of us. We had the opportunity to deconstruct and reframe what no longer served us, even if it was once born from a space of self protection. So much change, so much growth, so much was thrown open.

That love came to me at a time when my world was full and busy. My energy being given in so many directions because I wanted to do it all. I loved doing it all, and my days were filled with ever changing creation, expansion, and connection. It was not the same for my past lover, who had led a very different life from me. I was busy with school, work, and numerous activities and he already had begun a carreer. His schedule encompassed time and space to breathe in a different way then I had available at the time, which was a major source of tension for us. I needed freedom, and a partner to experience the fullness of life with me. It seemed that the more I knew of him, the more life simply happened, I saw that he'd rather hide away. When it revealed itself, it revealed itself quickly. I chose to look past it, I did not yet embrace my fullest power and stand up to honour the fact that I needed more. I had it in me already.

I felt as though there was immense pressure to love in a certain way. I not know how to sacredly demand it in return in a way that did not elicit defence or fear from him. In truth, I did not recognize the magnitude of that and how it affected my femanine essence. I did not realise how much I dimed myself for him, or what patterns I unconciously became stuck in. I had not practiced advocating for myself in numerous areas in my life until that point, and so it felt daunting to me, especially when met with disdain from a partner I thought was supposed to be that...a partner. I had also never wanted to stay and work on it as much as I did at the time. I did not know how to mould my love in a way that fit to what he needed, nor if I really wanted to do so. I was swept up in the good parts that I let a lot go unspoken.

He did not hold me in the way I needed. I do not blame him or hold any resentment. He did the best he could with what he knew. Maybe he didn't care to know how to do it differently. Maybe he did not have the capacity to. Maybe, and really the deepest part of me knew this to be true, I didn't want or allow him to either because I knew it wasn't all that was available.

Love had a funny way of becoming all I was. I lived and breathed it, even when it began to tear me apart. I refused to let it elude me. We both wanted it so deeply, and retrospectively, we wanted it in much different ways. There are so many ways we were called to expand, so many layers shed, so much moodyness in our experience. It was hot and cold and quickly turned to blaming and shaming. I lost myself a good many times to appease the demands, even when I knew it did not work for me.

I didn't want to admit it but I knew in the depths of me that we were meant to be. For that season of life, it happened exactly as it needed to, as it always does. The experience was an initiation into love. In each other, yes, but more importantly in ourselves. I knew it was an awakening for me to learn what I really valued in love and what sort of treatment I would allow.

Though our parting was bittersweet and exactly as it was suppoed to be, it broke my heart. It was what was needed, which we agreed upon. Reflection, reconnection to our truths, and letting go of what clearly was not serving was necessary, and felt like the healthiest decision. Simultaneously I felt like I was dying for a good while. Grieving all the possibilities, the dreams I curated, the parts of my I'd abandoned, the parts that had been banished, every moment, the euphoric and the dispondent. Letting go of the love I had experienced broke me in many ways. It broke me down and broke me open, showing me profound truths and unlocking parts of my I had long forgotten.

My king will come to me in another form, someone I have yet to encounter as this new version of me continues to step forth.

Oh to be so loved. I can feel it.

To be loved so tenderly and recklessly that nothing else matters. Having the knowledge that within this kindred soul, there is a home, a safe place for all of me, and for him in mine. Where our shadows are met not with judgement but gentle care and space to simply be seen. Where my own perception of love is shattered and re built like Kintsugi so many times I loose count.

There is love so free there is no question of if it was meant to be. There are no hooks, no manipulations, no murkiness. There is authenticity, honour, trust, and respect. There is the choice to be in love beyond intial infatuation, remaining open and curious of one another's ever evolving soul. Here, we allow the tides of our lives to simply flow, replacing what has served it's time with such tender newness, and honoring each season, each lesson, with the deepest respect.

Love waits for me around every corner. I think it must wait for the perfect window, a moment of clarity in which, even for an instant, my soul recognizes another. It's like our inner beings reach out and embrace in reunion, and we know it is our time. However fleeting it may be, each time brings about earth shattering goodness. It has always been exactly what was meant to be experienced, and precisely when, too.

That love, of that depth, is heartwrenching. And it is beautiful.

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That is the long-short version of my experience. There is much more to be explored as this series continues. I am just as curious to see how this unfolds as you are.

Thank you for being here with me as I explore my voice and begin to share my story. 🦋🤍🔮🗝

Until next time.