Episode 14: All Paths Lead Back to Love
All paths lead back to love.
All paths lead back to love.
The only stack that seems to make sense to me is that of the layers and foundations on which I build myself and my life. How is it that having and showing and holding love for myself can feel like the journey of journeys? Why is it that the pursuit of love, in any and all forms, seems more likely to sit on the sidelines — relegated to a particular box rather than to be front and centre? Why is it that love seems to be a topic men don't discuss? The success can be shared, but not the intention, the pursuit, or the ambition.
I understand it in pillars along this path of love. Relationship to the self is the foundation. It's the building of compassion, grace, respect for where I come from and where I am. It's the permission to say no, to take up room, to validate for myself the actions and behaviour and intentions that I respect. This flows and expands. In hardship it can feel as if it dries up, and in connection and communion it overflows, knowing no bounds.
Far from linear, love in community represents the visible pillar — the scaffolding of support, of witness to the person that continues to emerge. There is no greater gift than to feel seen, understood, and accepted. At times it's harsh truths, or gentle reminders, or tearful distance. The bond, the tie, the love grounds even when life feels rapid, rushed, numb. It's the expression and transition from internalised local love to it expounding around us that holds magical, sacred qualities. To receive, and to be allowed the space to give, are gifts that are belonging and beyond the land and the water and this sky.
What if love of self and in community was given the same social status as romantic love — the pinnacle, according to our fairy tales, and the heartstring of human plot lines? And what if that placement didn't take away or diminish what is and should be exalted? What if it celebrated and held deep knowing and recognition of the vulnerability it takes to allow others to see us in our naked truth?
Other things are easier to tame, and hold a greater promise of consistency, than the exposure of holding love in its rightful place. So it's packed away — a promise to the future of what might be at another time, once medals and certificates have been ordained upon us. But love does not require a threshold of worthy. It simply asks us for humble hands and the recognition of all that is not known.
All paths lead back to love.
All paths lead us home.