Here we are at that time of year when all the shops are filed with hearts and many single people are cringing under the pressure of St Valentine’s Day so often put upon them because they are single. But just as there may be many lonely hearts dreaming of love there are just as many people who actually like being single. Not everyone needs to live with someone else or be ‘half’ a couple.
Love isn’t about being in couples is it? A loving relationship with someone special who returns our love in the same way is fulfilling and nourishing, but shouldn’t all our relationships be like that anyway?
So many people have written to me over the years about troubles in love. If I do card readings at a festival people come along wanting to be told they will find love soon. Yet all the spiritual teachers advise us that in order to find real love we must first learn to love our self.
‘Eros’ is the name of the love we feel for our partners and ‘agape’ is devotion. It’s the kind of love we call unconditional, or universal, it’s the love we feel for God.
My own thoughts are that as well as learning to love and accept who we are, we must also discover forgiveness to find out what love really is.
Let me remind you what has been said about love by some of the good, the great and the wise:
“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”
― Mother Teresa
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” Jesus Christ (John 13:34).
“God loved us before he made us; and his love has never diminished and never shall.”
― Julian of Norwich
“Truth sees God, and wisdom contemplates God, and from these two comes a third, a holy and wonderful delight in God, who is love.”
― Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love
“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”
― Mother Teresa
“There is only one happiness in life — to love and to be loved.”
George Sand (1804-1876) French Romantic writer.
“Where there is love there is life.”
Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948)
“Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.”
― Mother Teresa
“My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite.”
(Romeo and Juliet, 2.2) William Shakespeare
“When Love speaks, the voice of all the gods
Makes heaven drowsy with the harmony.”
(Love’s Labour’s Lost, 4.3) William Shakespeare
Whether you relate better to Eros or Agape. Have a very loving weekend!
With my love, Chrissie
