What a moment!
The openess created in people’s hearts for me comes from a symbiotic relationship of loving and being loved. In every way that I feel so loved, so do they. To remind myself that, and to take up space and allow the love in is amazing.
I’m so grateful to love like this and be loved like this – not in return but rather in unison. Both do exist in isolation I guess, without the need to be reciprocated. I would still love all of these people without being loved in return…is a song I have sung to many different melodies. But, the reciprocity that does exist here in these relationships must be noted. For it has watered and fed this love in magical ways and allowed it to grow big, wild, crazy, untamed… with deep diving roots and far reaching branches: that store fuel for our love in “winters” of distance; that stretch out to provide shade in firey “summers” when the closeness of our souls can blind us; that hang low to plop juicy fruits into our hands. They say the proof is in the pudding and perhaps it is – proof of a love well nourished.
As we sink our teeth into our harvest’s juicy flesh, I am reminded of braving messy words-on-mouths tangled up at night that allow our hearts to drip down our chins, without shame or an urge to quickly wipe the truth away.
As we peel back skins and pluck out seeds, hands sticky with the same sweet nectar that softens our tongues, I am reminded of brave fingers reaching deep into the soil of our souls: aerating the dense sections of clay, adding space, adding any nutrients lacking, removing weeds that sap our energy, and sowing seeds fertile with intention.
There are so many hands at play in the gardens of our hearts and souls! Our own and those of our parents, families, friends, comunities, experiences, supernatural powers… So many hands… and so many fingers dripping in the same sweet earthy love, licked by tongues that know that life can feel like a mouthful of fruity nectar and grainy soil all at once…and often does.
I am so grateful for each individual finger landscaping my inner world with the trace of its unique fingerprint… what a gift to look inside myself and so clearly see and feel a garden created by everyone I know and love.