Since my partner died, I wake up almost every night between 3 and 4 am. This is considered the "witching hour", though it's debated. I can't say why this began exactly. The first time it happened, I experienced an ego dissolution so powerful I felt I had melted into a pool of just BEING, becoming one with the Divine within and without.
This continues to happen at this hour for me, nearly every night, though usually not as powerful as the first time. Sometimes I wake up and instead deny this sensation and immediately get hit by wave after wave of ceaseless thought as I try to analyze it instead of just leaning in and welcoming it.
It was during one of these "witching hours" that I felt a concept I'd been trying to put into words finally come together;
All life, every form and every space is a story. And every story is a "love story". Regardless if it evokes a feeling of joy or tragedy.
I'm going to try my best to put this into words. It's something that's been floating around my head for a while now, and it's more of a sense than a thought.
Every person has a story, no matter what their lifespan was. All of our stories begin with our parents, and their stories begin with their parents, and so on. Our ancestors' lives and their stories influence our own. Whether we knew them or not. And not just our blood-related ancestors. People who laid the foundations and influenced everything we love are our ancestors too; artists, dancers, gardeners, craftsmen, the people who founded your hospitals, libraries, schools, clubs, hobbies, the people who brought your favorite style of music, food, fashion, etc. to your homeland.
Anyone who has had a thread of connection to you helped weave your story through space and time.
The empty spaces around us, the "formless", have a story too. Events happen and leave an energy imprinted on the place. We have hauntings, places where we say the "veil is thin", and places we say hold a certain "vibe". Old battlefields where ghosts endlessly roam. Places in the forest that we're inexplicably drawn to or away from. Walking into your childhood bedroom and feeling a sense of both sorrow and joy for what used to be.
Stories saturate these places and change them forever.
But I suggested that every story is a LOVE story. I realize that's a strange thing to claim. The reason I insist on this is because everything comes back to love. Almost everything we do is out of love for someone or something. We go to a concert because we love the artist's music, and we buy their album for the same reason. We eat dessert because we love the taste of it. We try to eat healthier and exercise because we love our bodies, and we want our bodies to sustain us for as long as they can because we love ourselves, love life, and love our family and friends who want to be with us in this form for as long as possible.
People do awful things out of love, I know. And there are times that people do things that appear to have nothing to do with love. But that's just not possible. We've already established that all of our stories are connected by big and small threads woven together. And we've already established that actions, people, and emotions leave an imprint on a space. That means love has permeated all spaces everywhere.
Any why is love the prominent energy? Why not the hatred that seeps from one's heart and into their actions and into a place? Why not fear? Why does love win out over those emotions?
Because love is not just a feeling, it is powerful energy. And it is the motivation behind those other feelings too. Why does anyone hate anyone? Why do people hate republicans or democrats or other groups of people? Either they pose a threat to you, your loved ones, or to the world (at least from your perspective they do.) Maybe when I said that every story is a love story, you thought of a time someone hurt you and balked at the notion. But underneath that hurt or hatred you feel for another, love is still the underlying motivation. You loved that person and they betrayed you? You love yourself so you hate the person who hurt you? You loved who you were before the hurt changed you? You mourn who you could have been if that story had not played out, because you love. Our love for ourselves, others, places, and things is the root of all our motivations.
If we go back in time and look at all our ancestors did, including giving birth to the current generation, the love-motivation is more constant than any other motivation. They survived, built, worked, played, protected, hunted, healed, crafted, danced, made fire, had babies, developed land, grew crops, etc. etc. etc. out of LOVE.
How far back in time can we go with this? Can we go all the way back to the instant all life came into existence?
Regardless of your religious or spiritual belifs, I believe love is still clearly visible as the inspiration behind all life. Why create anything if not for love?
If you do believe in a creator or, like me, the "God & Goddess", it's maybe easier to see the origins of love. I don't subscribe to the idea of a God and a Goddess because I explicitly and literally think there is a male and female creator. I use these words to symbolize a more abstract concept:
We're born from sexual union. The God and Goddess together symbolize this act of creation itself. That union creates all life. All possibilities. All stories that come after.
Life spirals, expanding outward from the Goddess' womb, and all creation comes forth from her love, and in time turns back inwards to her.
The God and the Goddess are symbolic of the "sacred male" and "sacred female" polarities in all people. You can assign whatever characteristics you want to the categories of "masculine" and "feminine", but they don't really matter. Everyone, especially depending on what culture they're from, will have differing ideas on what those characteristics are. It boils down to this; the sacred masculine is "active" energy, and the sacred feminine is "receptive" energy.
This concept is also known as Yin & Yang. Yang/active/masculine energy flows outward, and is assertive. Yin/receptive/feminine energy flows inward and is open and adaptable.
Most of us lean more towards one or the other, regardless of our sex or gender, and are drawn to people who balance us with complementary energy. But we all exist on the spectrum somewhere, not fully one or the other. As we should. Both energies are necessary and balance is best.
This balance, the inward and outward, is the flow of life. We all go through phases -- physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, conceptually -- where we grow, expand, build, flow outward. And in turn we all go through phases where we contract, turn in to perceive and to reflect, diminish, and flow inward. Both phases are important. Both are sacred.
A spiral is one of the oldest spiritual symbols. It is contracting and expanding at the same time, like life, like creation. It hums in harmony, perfect balance, and love. This is what I feel when I wake in the dark; a breathless wave of contraction and expansion as I feel the universe unfolding inward and outward.
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