Learning to Live in Love
The other morning as I sat to meditate, I was hit with a sudden knowingness that leap through the silence, “All of this is really, truly illusion!” It was a knowing born of remembering…something deep within me burst from within my core. It felt like an awakening. Like arising from an unhappy dream and feeling the weight lift as you realize that none of it was real. I cried with relief. And then I laughed at the simplicity of it. Because on the other side of remembering that it’s all I dream, I felt to my core the knowing that only Love actually exits.
So, I am sitting on my back deck in the midst of what feels like a beautiful paradise…birds singing, trees reaching out their branches to me, flowers blooming and I’m both crying and laughing at the realization. And then a soothing voice speaks from within, “It’s beautiful. But it’s still illusion. It’s a beautiful and sometimes horrific illusion.”
Because I tend to awaken hours before my husband, Jere, I heard him walking into the kitchen to make his coffee, just as I was coming back to notice the happenings around me. I exclaimed in glee to my sleepy husband, “I just had the most amazing experience!” I gave him a few minutes to integrate what words struggled to explain. He sipped his coffee and listened intently as he gradually came to. Luckily, he’s grown accustomed to my early morning ramblings and revelations. He tends to absorb it all easily and often has more trust in my experiences than even myself. I credit it to his Catholic upbringing, steeped in mysticism. This time was no different. He drank it all in with his coffee and savored the bliss and relief of it all right along with me. And then he remarked, “Now if we could just hold onto this for longer than five minutes!”
Yes! That is the challenge. How do we learn to see and live only in the Love that is real? How do we grasp a Home that lies beyond what our senses are so good at deceiving us into believing? How do we release the ego structures of time to remember we live in eternity? How do we tune into love so that Truth expands in our awareness? I ponder. I write. I try to practice it all.
Here are some of my ponderings as I conversed with Love Itself…
Me: If I live in eternity then my soul dwells in infinite peace, love & bliss. And if this place I inhabit for just a little while-this beautiful mess of an experiment, this divine chaos, is simply for me to learn to dance and to expand in the Love that I am…
How then shall I dance?
How then shall I love?
I hear the world of form is illusion. “Wear it loosely you say.”
Love Itself: “Pay no attention to the form but let your heart and soul melt into the essence of Love that lies beneath. For that is your reality. Anchor yourself in Love.”
I do so as I watch a heart-shaped cloud drift by.
Love Itself: “Let your happy impulses be your navigation system. For that is All you need. Don’t take the rest so seriously. It will steal your joy and rob you of your inheritance and power. For you are meant to dance and play, sing, and laugh. Create your own colors and simply expand the Love that you are. Nothing more.
Remember also, you bring your brothers & sisters with you.
Along with all creatures & plants, big and small.
For you are all One expanding Orb of Light and Energy
Love Light
Love Energy
Whatever you do for one
You do for all.
Let your joy be in expanding our One Light!”
I rested for a while as I continued to contemplate.
Then, days after my awakening to the illusion, I received this more in-depth message from
Love Itself…
“Stoke the fires of Love and you will know eternity.
For love is your home and your birth right. Everything that exists is born of Love.
Illusion, nonetheless, but born of Love.
In all things, learn to look past the illusion of form and open your heart to remember
the love from which it was given birth.
When you look on a brother or sister, remember the body is not the truth of this soul
that is one in Love with you.
Let your will be to see only the One Love from which you both were given birth and opportunity to
create this experience for the purpose of expanding all Love…first the Love that you are (individually) as
experiments in individuality,
that the expansion of the One Love might play joyfully in its own reflection.
It’s time now, by beloved ones, for you to play joyfully.
Let your minds be set on joy and love…only that.
That all you see and reflect around you will expand further into the joy and love that you are.
Learn to love as I have loved, forever knowing and seeing only the Truth in each and every
beloved brother, sister, creature, & energy form.
Eternity, your Home, is expanding light and love. That is all.”
~Love Itself
Here are my take aways to practice:
~Try to anchor myself in love by allowing myself to melt into the essence of love…feel it through and through as much as possible!
~Try to let my happy impulses be my guide. That is You helping me expand our light and joy!
~Every day I want to play, dance, laugh & sing as much as possible!
~Be mindful to look past the ego illusions of form and ego defenses so that I can let our love engulf every person & creature who crosses my path.
~Try to love myself and others with the infinite patience, grace, and compassion from which we all were born and is our birth right!
What are your takeaways? How then shall you dance?
With much expanding love,
~Janine