Meditating on the word Love, I usually come up blank. Love is such an over used word, yet we tend to know that it must have some profound meaning. I set up a program for myself that will last five years and cover five meditation sigils. These sigils are actually words, but I have also assigned them a color. I began with Hope (black) two years ago, and last summer was supposed to try and understand the word Love (red) through meditation and a ceremony that I would have with myself, but instead spent almost five months manic and psychotic. So, I am catching up on my homework. Staying on schedule, this year I am meditating on Loyalty (purple), next year Faith (chartreuse or yellow/green), and the year after that Balance (blue). To me these words represent the five points of a star or pentagram, and all five words encompass devotion on the journey to understand the soul.

So back to Love. What does Love mean to me? It seems that you cannot experience Loyalty without Love, and I also believe one must first discover Hope to begin any healing journey. But now that I have meditated on Hope, I find myself at the doorstep to understanding the word Love. Let’s start with mythology. Venus and Aphrodite, have been known to be jealous, possessive, and often vindictive. These are clues. I discussed earlier, that on the journey to understand the true self, to know ones true self, one may encounter Loyalty to self. But this Loyalty to self must rest upon a foundation. Hope is the spark, the beginning. So what is Love essential to? Do we first learn to love others before we learn to love ourselves? I told my boyfriend when I was sixteen that I could not return his love because I did not love myself. Yet, the first time I knew about Love, was when I fell for my husband when I was nineteen, and in this passionate experience where I completely lost myself, I first had the fear of death, of Steve dying. I loved him so much, that I couldn’t face the truth that I would lose him someday. It was as if love was about waking up, and opening my eyes. It was about feeling and embodying true psychological pain; the pain of losing someone you love. It was about becoming completely aware.

So why is Aphrodite so jealous of Psyche? Why did she treat her with such disdain and send her to accomplish impossible tasks before she could see her lover Eros again? Isn’t this what love feels like when we find it? Before us appears a completely impossible journey that we must take if we wish to hold and inhabit true love. It is as if we are unraveling the mystery of our pain. Don’t Hollywood movies about falling in love often spell out this scenario? If you are not faced with impossibility when you discover true love, then perhaps you are settling. Perhaps this is realistic. Who has the time for real true love? For me it took surrendering to daily life and giving up on college. It looked like facing the possibility of losing the love of my parents and sister, as they did not approve. It took accepting that I was in love with an outlaw that was wanted by the law, thus accepting this path for myself. It took learning to live very closely with many dogs, which is very challenging to someone who has never had pets in their life. Of course, I always wanted a dog, so I knew my dreams were coming true. (Wink). God had pulled me from my Ivy League school in the Bay Area, and planted me with true mental illness. My life was over; then I found that it was just beginning. Here I am 23 years later, and in a way I do feel that I have completed Venus’ 100 impossible tasks on the journey to understand Love, my psyche, and my soul.

So why is Love so jealous and vindictive? Because it plays at the ‘heart’ of it all. The very essence, the deepest chords of our beings are being tuned. It is like Hope in that way. Where Hope is born in pure darkness and acts like a “big bang”, Love similarly has the power to transform the darkness. Perhaps it takes a real bitch to have the power and assertiveness to completely rearrange our very stubborn selves. But she, Love, is all knowing and all powerful. She comes in many forms; passionate, agape, motherly, friendship. There is still so much to know and understand about the nature of Love. It is so hard to wrap one’s brain around, that I believe this is why I go a little blank when asked to define love. Love is running the show in the background, and deep down in our hearts. Perhaps there is no other needed definition for love besides pure trust. She requires pure and utter trust if we are going to allow her to take action in the complex unfolding of our lives.