Love

Years ago I wanted to write a song about Love. Not romantic love, though that’s wonderful, but the glue of the Universe, Love, the essential energy, Love, the “God is Love”, Love. Though it had never occurred to me that I’d ever write a song, this would become my second composition. Amazing!– I sang songs, I didn’t write them. But I felt the prompting and for the next week went about my life with a tape recorder ever at the ready. I’d hum the melody into it – I’d get a few lyrics waiting for a bus. In very short order I had a song. Richard Shulman, my fabulous pianist at the time, added accompaniment to the melody and there we were – "Love Is The Answer" was a full blown song. The opening lyrics:

Love surrounds us every moment
Refreshing us with every breath we take.
Smell it in the beauteous rose,
Hear it in the sweet bird’s song,
See it everywhere you choose to look.

Since my spiritual immersion and healing with the extraordinary Hilda Charlton, I have resonated with “God is Love”, feeling and sensing, when conscious and in-the-present, that we all live in this sea of Love (God). This probably explains why the most oft repeated word in Hawaii is Aloha, which means far more than hello and goodbye. It means “The breath of God is in our presence”. Hawaiians also say “Thank you” a lot. These people know they’re living in paradise – they’re very grateful. As am I. Once you’ve slogged through life-threatening disease, you’re very grateful.

And now I find that my mission can best be articulated as gently guiding people to the experience of Love and Peace that resides within us all – as well as all around us all, always – in all ways – even in the throes of dark circumstances. So in my programs and meditations, there’s the encouragement to be grateful throughout the day for the most ordinary things that we all take for granted – the soft sheets that embrace us as we rest in our comfy beds, the water that gushes forth from a faucet at our every beck and call.

Which brings me to the graphic you see above. This picture that I’d clipped out of a magazine years ago suddenly surfaced, and I knew I was to share it now. Every spiritual teaching for millennia has taught us that God is everywhere, in our air, in our water, in everything. So, I suggest that every time we take a shower, we imagine that this is Love (God) pouring upon us – every color of the rainbow soaking into our pores, soothing, relaxing, renewing, revitalizing, healing every cell of us. How blessed we will feel. Why shouldn’t our daily ablutions be consciously healing? Albert Einstein said: Imagination is more important than information. Imagine. Try it.

DeLightful Spring

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never ending line
Along the margin of a bay;
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee;
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocud company!
I gazed– and gazed– but little thought,
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie,
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye,
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth's words danced in my head as I awoke this morning. Spring is more deliciously seeping into the light we see and the air we breathe each and every moment. And as I look at the relentless pace of our lives, I feel the wisdom of gifting ourselves with wandering, even "lonely", in nature. (Central Park or any city park works wonders.) The freshness, newness and abundance of this precious season revitalizes and renews all our senses, to say nothing of our hearts and souls who long to revel in this joy, these new beginnings. Allowing ourselves to open to this beauty is truly the gift that keeps on giving, as we subsequently allow ourselves the luxury of silence and reverie to be ever-nourished by this soul food over and over again at our slightest whim. Relax-Receive-Renew. May Spring's Light bless all.