On Valentine's Day

Love

 As I write this post today, I find myself in love once again. Love has always been a powerful emotion to me, as it is I suspect with everyone susceptible to it. As I sit here contemplating its hold on me, I realize that we too-often discount its real meaning in life. On days like this, folks outside a relationship dismiss it and folks who have lost one ridicule it - like it is love's fault somehow. Perhaps we define it too narrowly or misunderstand what it really gives us.

When we define love as something between two individuals/ a pet/ even a possession, we minimize the scope of what love entails. As I wander my new landscape or simply sit outside and watch the life that now lives around me, I have a better understanding of love, I believe. I realize that real love exceeds the simple two-person/ thing relationship and that it encompasses a much broader outlook on life as a whole. It is love that draws us to the earth and the creatures/plants/natural beauty that share this life with us. Those of us that plant a living landscape have come to this realization and those around me largely haven't yet. 

To want to give back more to this world than we take means that we have been touched by love in its real form. The concept of reciprocity so well stated by Robin Wall Kimmerer in her book Braiding Sweetgrass, provides us with a road map to our landscapes. We give back at least as much as we take from the earth. There is no way to live without taking, but we can create the conditions to reciprocate what we take by our need to live. Our living landscapes  create the conditions for life to grow. My neighbors' landscapes do not. When we discover a love for life, we plant the seeds to make this happen.

Love is a most-powerful emotion. On this Valentine's Day, I wish you all love in its real sense. Share your love with the rest of the earth. That is the gift that should define this special day.

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