Being Love

LATE FRAGMENT

And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.

- Raymond Carver

Magic happens when we are busy being love. I don't mean being 'in' love, as if it were a substance we swim in. But being love, the walking talking ocean itself. Touching everyone and everything with our gentle wave, bringing love to everything we do.

A friend described her life of late: providing great service to people at work, realizing some visionary projects and handing some off to others, paying off debt and saving for the next big thing, tending the relationship in a new way with her life partner. She is happy, excited about life, and at peace.

Part of me is pure envy listening to all this wonderfulness. And still I am awake enough to recognize that she is Being Love. She's crossed into new territory. And she is making a difference. I am Present enough to be happy for her.

I try to remember moments of being love. Setting out for a hike, anticipating adventure. Making my husband laugh. That still, crackling point when a counseling session opens up and my client and I are deeply moved by discovery. Making art when I let it make me. Allowing myself to be all broken in front of other people. Letting their compassion mosaic me back together. Noticing that my cat has hypnotized me once again into giving him a belly rub.

How do I get back to this being love when it feels so far away? The envious part of me desperately needs to know. Does the self-care routine come first? My friend has fine-tuned her nutrition, rest, and yogic spiritual practice. She actively loves herself with the basics every day.

Or is it an internal action? A surrender to love, a YES to life, a declaration of I am here. It probably doesn't matter where it starts, as acts of self-love or reaffirming belief in love and the goodness of life. Just that it starts. In deep winter, with our much needed rains seeping into thirsty earth, seeds of being love are being fed.

New Year Magic

I did a wonder walk through the fog with my man on New Year's Day. What I want to say about that: it's good to start your year daring to be a fool for love. On Van Ness Avenue, near the serious opera hall and spiffed up city hall, we looked up and found a hawk soaring. Fairly low, it looked down at us while hunting for lame pigeons. We do what we always do with high fliers. We stuck our arms out and echoed their soaring, swaying back and forth with our long fingery wings.

I called to one, then two of the beautiful relatives, that we love them. It's thrilling, my heart leaps when I see the wild in the city. I tell them I love them and thank them. People around us are giving us the hairy eyeball. We point, "Look at the hawks!" But they just pass us by and don't look up.

I believe that the animals, our relatives, only let themselves be seen by those with eyes. I have eyes, my man has eyes, and certain of my friends have eyes to see the magic in the world. I am grateful they are here. Hawks are messengers to Spirit, so whenever you see one, send a message of thanks, love, and blessing. Use that acute vision to hone in on what will feed you well. And ask for what you want.

I wanted to feel myself alive in the city I love, exploring with my man, being a body in joyful motion. And so it was.