what is Love?

The major theme of this year has been 'love'

I've been thinking about a few things lately, and over the last couple of days I've been trying to think about what love is?

Someone told me they don't know what love is. And that got me thinking a few things...

It may sound niave, but my first reaction to myself was: 'is that actually possible?'

In a way it feels to me that everyone knows what love is; because I feel like [get out the vase of hippy flowers and rainbows]: everyone IS love.

It also got me thinking because I generally feel like I myself am just some over bubbling froth of love - largly contained at the creaking cultural edges, for your benefit.

I'd be VERY curious to get comments on this post, what do YOU think love is???

If you don't want to know what I think it is befor you jot down your ideas, you may want to stop reading this post NOW

[and I mean right now]













Ok, your still here I see... or you have written your thoughts so that mine will not affect yours. Here is what came out on papper after some mulling over the subject in various locations in London [oh yeah, I'm in English country apparently! Nice times here!]:

What is love?

* Love is that warm feeling that fills me when I wake up in the morning and think of you.
* Love is the joy you bring
* Love is the happiness I feel when I see you happy
* Love is the gratitude, appreciation; love is loving you for the person you are.
* Love is letting someone go so that they can be the person they need to become. The wisdom in knowing that love is not possesed: it is given freely without condition and returned naturally without need for reclaimation.
* Love is deeply loving yourself within so that you can radiate penetrating love without.
* Love is the apposit of fear: it is the boundlesses of freefall. Fear is the friction our souls encounter as they discover more meaning to the meaning of love. The disolving of fear in this vision represents the new levels of love that are uncovered in our eternal growth.
* Love in undefinable because it will always mean more than words can mean
* Love is the grace that feeds your life. Like the caring hand that holds the world in place.
* Love is the knowledge that there is no good and evil; there is only good and temporary ignorance.
* Love is the gratitude one feels for the love that the devine/universe/god[s] have in me.
* Love is creation
* Love is the companion fed from and by trust, respect, appreciation, joy, intimacy. It is the state one can enter when there is both a crystilization of intense individuality and the merging of the self with 'the one' [= with others or with thyself].
* Love is the binding ellement of the universe, unconditional and beyond all worldy joys and tribulations.
* Love is being able to accept everything about yourself and another person to the fullest of your abilities. It can be a moment, or a subconcious truth that lives integrated inside of you.
* Love is finding someone in your life you can be the person you trurly are with. It is the redisocvery of that state of peace, contentment and acceptance that one really is.
* Love is accepting the present moment of this life, seeing the joy that surrounds you without fears of time.
* Love is the knowledge that we continually are loved while accepting that the form of love we receive is constantly in a state of change. Some people may exchange a love that evolves over years, others may exchange love between various different people at different times; the contexts of interactions change but the love is always present if you are open to it.
* Love is what you are left with once all the other layers of life are peeled away. It is the fountain's source, and the light at the end of our tunnels. It binds us.

Or one of my favorite perspectives on love came in a drawing I made in my art journal back in mid 2006:

Serene power and wisdom in the fundamental polenesian architype, Bora bora, french polenesia, 2006.

Most people will not admit
that man is nothing more than unconditional love
in self denial