Multo.com :: Visual Magic

Love Is…and Isn’t…

I sit back and listen to my favorite ladies whisper and sing – Nora, Sarah, Joss, Natasha, Nina, Billie and Ella…

We all want love. We all make art about love. And it eludes us as we seek it, like mercury in your hand.

Love is and isn’t the beginning and the end of all things. Love inside your core, your heart, that’s special, private and real. Love as the pull of desire, external and needy, is commonplace, is desperation and running from being alone.

I am reminded of how love can twist and bind. A friend of mine has a similar situation with her family, and over the holidays we discussed how family can reject you, exile you and even from thousands of miles away, harm you. I think on how I’ve rejected and hurt back, despite the deep knowledge it was wrong. Denial and abuse, entrenched anger, long held grudges, misery and disconnection. We both have siblings we are close to and other siblings we don’t speak to, or who won’t speak to us. She and I are sisters in this kind of pain and love. We are also sisters in art, in creating art to heal ourselves and our families, karmically, if possible.

I had a healing on December 24. It was a beautiful experience. As I lay on the table, the healer worked her magic. I had visions РI saw a line of women coming towards me in all kinds of costumes, asking me to join them, as I was their ni̱a. I saw many other things, but this one image stuck with me. After the healing, my healer spoke to me about the images and feelings I had. She told me the women were my ancestors, who were helping me realign with my ancestoral line, and bring healing into my family. While I may not have the support or comfort of my entire family on this plane, my ancestors are behind me, lifting me up, helping me along.

I sought disconnection most of my life – to be separate and safe, whole in my own world. That’s not real living. That’s hiding. That’s what we are all doing as we turn away from each other and more towards devices that let us speak to each other. We are hiding behind technology, masking our intentions with indirect communications. We are unable to connect past our families, to create community. We allow the strong willed and the loud to coral us into modes of living. The kinder, gentler beings in our world are treated like cattle. We are afraid to reach out, because we live in constant fear – of the other, of war, of terror, of rejection and humiliation, of abuse and addiction. We are afraid to give our love and our resources freely, focusing on the money, the tit for tat nature of commerce. Love has become a traded commodity, singularly focused on desire and sex. Love of family, of community, of all human beings in general, seems to be retreating. Its not sexy or marketable.

The lack of community does not allow men and women to relate beyond sexuality. There are few examples of fellowship between the sexes that doesn’t end up with someone sleeping with someone else. Where are the stories of respect and loyalty (that aren’t about organized crime)? What we value we see on TV, in the theaters, in the papers, on the net. Look at it, see what’s missing and what’s being sold. Our culture is spinning wildly and in too many directions.

Peace. Peace of mind. Peace of heart. Peace of intention. Peace of focus. We don’t take time to make peace happen. We want it in a pill or something we can buy and wrap around ourselves. How about wrapping ourselves in dignity, taking the time to know who we are, what we want and what state our hearts are in?

Love is…something you figure out for yourself, something you share, something you tend to and grow, at its own pace, in its own time.

Peace,
Melissa