In one of my recent post More than Words I asked people to draw different emotions, one of them being love. Afterwards I had a brief discussion with one of the participants where I made a comment that love is a difficult feeling to draw. Then in my last post Speechless I said that love is the answer, not peace. I am going to discuss some of my thoughts although they won’t be exhaustive.

What is love?

In the English language we use the word love for a variety of different situations: l love coffee, I love my dog, I love skiing, I love my partner, child, friend, etc. This general use of the term ‘love’ has the potential to water the meaning of love down. Love is often used in reference to feeling but love is more than a feeling.

In other languages there are different words that separate out the different types of love. I am not going to use any specific language examples because I am not an expert in languages but I have enough followers from all over the world that might be able to give examples in the comments section later on.

We find that some of the words refer the concept of romantic love; or familial love; paternal love; maternal love; self-love; friendship love; God’s love; covenant love; love of nature, animals and on and on. And although I might love all those things I don’t use the word intending the same depth of meaning.

A fellow blogger, Kaushal Kishore, wrote a lovely poem called Then and Now: A Tale of Love that highlights yet another thought provoking side to love.

But what does it mean to love?   

In whatever community you belong to (partnership, marriage, family, friends, religion, clan, tribe, service, or country) there is a certain level of connection, commitment, respect, honour, and collaboration. We hope to mutually support, encourage, uplift, trust, care, work together and protect one another. We look for kindness, communication, honesty, patience, shared time, support, understanding and empathy. Love is an attitude. Love is a value.

And yes love can be passion, attraction and a feeling but when these fiery or fuzzy emotions fall away the depth of love does not need to fall away too. Love overlooks mistakes. Beyond feeling is commitment and deliberate choice.

How do we grow our love?

It’s like looking after a garden, we look after our love through communication, awareness, mindfulness, self-reflection; we foster love through gifts, shared time, support, reaching out, understanding and forgiveness.

Love is not rude, self-seeking, arrogant or impatient. We need to grow the right types of seeds to foster quality love.

I was out gardening this weekend, pulling out  a certain type of weed. It’s called fox and cubs or hawkweed. It took over my flower patch by encroaching on other plants’ ground. It looked so bright and cheerful with all its orange flowers. I was bedazzled by it but little did I know that I was allowing a thug to take over. I had to use a pick-axe to get to the roots as it spreads via roots (shoots and rhizomes) and it also …

They have apomictically produced seeds (apomixes is the asexual development of seeds) in other words  the pollen of the hawkweed has no reproductive function  but only serves to kill the embryo of other plant pollen when butterflies and bees (pollinators) visit the next plant. So not only do the roots take up necessary resources of other plants but it is also ‘toxic’ to other species of plants. It discourages the growth of other species.

Sometimes a relationship has these qualities: selfish, self-serving and toxic, where one person takes and takes from the other. It takes up too much room in the relationship and the other person gives and gives until they are depleted and exhausted. Love is not exclusively taking or giving, it needs to be balanced of mutual exchange.

Sometimes these self-serving people are not ‘taking’ but controlling or smothering; this happens where the ‘roots’ ensnare; and this is not love either. Sometimes there’s an entitled attitude.  This type of weed illustrates the type of person who is self-seeking and destructive. Love needs to be mutual.

Healthy love

Healthy love is a like a garden where plants share spaces, water, compost and sunlight but they also have their own designated space to reside. They symbiotically work together underground via their roots, communicating and sharing microcosms, just like neighbourhoods and communities should. This is how life is supposed to be and how love should be within our communities and our world. No-one should feel entitled to laud it over another: no king, ruler, country, partner, friend, etc.  

Where there is audacity, hatred and disrespect there is no love.

We humans should call on Loving-kindness, forgiveness and mercy so that we may all flourish.

Take care of each other.

Ps. Some trivial information: Did you know that trees are highly reflective of infrared light and infrared light is good for our mitochondria so when we commune with the trees they are giving us something too.