This thing called love can be a great mystery to me at times. This thing that calls to me so completely and baffles me at the same time. This thing that I am untangling all I was taught about love that seems so counter to what my wise heart knows. My heart knows that love is all around me in every moment. That every moment there is magic to be had. My wise heart knows the value of softness, of tenderness, of hand holding, of snuggling, of cuddling. My wise heart knows this does not only come from my man. It can come every day from so many different people, in different ways. And my wise heart knows it’s time to welcome this energy if from a man. To stand for and create this is my life. My body and soul are craving it.

I look at life as energy and i am realizing how limited I’ve been in my thinking of love. Because there are so many tones to love. There is parent/child love. There are caresses, there is buying a favorite bottle of wine for a friend just because. There is putting a flower on a table for a guest’s meal. There is reaching out and caressing someone’s forearm because you sense they need love. There are toasts at weddings, picking up hitchhikers, creating a barbecue for your friends to gather. There are presents under the trees. Photos of texts of flowers just because. There is laying on the grass together under the stars. There is ordering a stranger your favorite dish. There are invitations to orphan’s thanksgiving, gifting a glass of wine. There is letting the wild woman sit on the front of the boat because she asks. There is singing and dancing along a forest path.

All of this is love.

And I’ve experienced most of this recently, imagined some of the others and while my heart could take it in for the most part I found my head awfully attached to how love showed up. That it needed to a man. And he needed to pick me. He needed to approve of me. He needed to make the move. And I believe what I am creating this time around is me creating the love. Me knowing what I desire and asking for it. Me reaching my hand out, me asking to be held. Me allowing to ask and receive. And as my asks get more specific, bigger- I create more love for all of us. Maybe it is asking for someone to massage my feet for awhile. I create a moment for us to connect in quiet touch. Maybe it is asking to go sit on the dock and watch the stars. I create a moment for us to take in nature and beauty. Maybe it is asking to dance on the terrace. I create a moment for us to listen to music and have it move our bodies. Maybe I ask for dark chocolate. I create a moment for him to enjoy buying me something I desire and watching my reaction as I savor it.

All of this is love. And I believe this is the power of women knowing their desires. Knowing the tones of love they need in the moment and asking for it…their man, their woman, their men, their women. their family, a stranger. And, as I have learned, much of this has involved not having a man or rather, not relying on a man to bring me this love. But rather the universe.

People keep asking me if I’m on my Eat, Pray, Love trip and I laugh because, no I am on my own journey. Although I felt for so long my journey, my story, was incomplete because I had yet to meet my Felipe in Bali. That I was missing out on the LOVE part of the story. But the truth is, I’ve been having an incredible love affair with myself, with the universe that has expanded what I now believe is possible in love. I have looked into the nooks and crannies of my heart, my darkness and found more love there than I ever imagined. And with more love comes more room for creation.

Because all along love has been mine to create. And instead I’ve been reacting. Reacting from how I was taught, what I saw and experienced. Rather than stepping off of that path and creating my own. Well, I’ve been hopping back and forth between paths. My teenager so excited for a crumb, my wise woman wanting to be held. My teenager settling for a creepy man who was paying her attention. My wise woman knowing there are divine men for me to meet and so much more to be experienced.

And I feel like right now I am raising this younger part of myself to understand so much more of love, of what is truly possible between people and that it is so much richer, juicier, full of so much more possibility than we ever imagined. So I encourage her to look into her heart- past the hurts of missed proms, of not dating in college, past the abuse, past the disapproval and to tune into her heart and tell me the truth of what she longs for…sweetness, gentleness, romance.

So, it feels like this moment in my journey is about creating the love I truly desire. One that is full of extraordinary tenderness and passion. One that is full of quiet and wild living. One that is full of eye gazing, of hand holding, of nights under the stars. One that is full of adventure travel and sitting by a fire for hours. One that is full of knowing the maps of each others bodies and souls. One that is about being more vulnerable than I could ever imagine for fear of what it would bring. And the thing is, it’s the walls that are causing the pain, not the vulnerability. The vulnerability gets me direction, guidance, truth, it might also cause me to blush but I feel alive. I feel true and seen, most importantly by me. I feel more me and I would rather have this, than not. I would rather feel embarrassed than laying in bed wondering what if I had asked him to come up and just snuggle? What if I had asked him to join me for a drink in front of the fire and hold my hand? What if I had been more brave with my love? What if I trusted my love and my way of loving more then what was taught to me?

We don’t need to adapt, we don’t need to deny our desires. This is my epic journey, my Eat, Pray, Love…coming back to my beautiful wise wild heart bit by bit. Layer by layer. Coming back to love as my primary language.

And so in the dark spaces of today, with the new moon, with all this energy of love around me. I desire to be. To trust. To know that first instinct is full of love, is the very thing the world needs me to do- to trust my instincts with love and to act on them.

And this feels like no small thing, this understanding that is dawning within me that my heart matters. That my heart gets to be met in all ways, all tones. That my heart doesn’t have to compromise in love. Rather, it can grow and grow. it can cut through the barbed wired and be free. It can be met with the sweetest. softest love. It does not need to have walls around it, it does not need to live in fear. It gets to be held. so so gently. By myself and all that I create in this life. It gets to be easy, it gets to be tender. I can release the soap opera drama tones of love, I can release the will McDreamy and Meredith ever get together love. I can release all of that fear, that forcing.

And I understand it might take me awhile to completely believe this, to create this, I ask for grace and know there will be some pebbles in the path. But at least there are no longer the boulders that once blocked me so completely. This magical place of Patagonia continues to alchemize these old thoughts and beliefs. This old energy living within me. It continues to hold up a mirror of incredible love that allows me to soften, to believe again.

So thank you Patagonia, thank you new moon. Thank you human self for surrendering your agenda to be going all day and to instead be soft and gentle and allow all of this to sift through my system. Thank you water for helping move this energy through, thank you for the sweet view of mountains and water and sky from my window. Thank you for snacks so I didn’t have to leave my room. Thank you for putting the computer down and letting me cry some more as all of this sinks in. Thank you for sleeping, for napping, for resting, thank you brain for quieting down.

Thank you love, for showing me the way once again.

I love the magic in the course of everyday life as your follow your pleasure and your truth. I needed to get some probiotics and skin cream (cuz it’s getting cold over here in Amsterdam). I prefer to shop at local stores and buy natural products so I found a sweet little locally owned natural product shop a few blocks from my apartment. While paying for my items I notice some angel cards on the counter. I pull one; Loslaten. The Dutch word for letting go. Which, it being the new moon and what was going in my life really resonated.

About two weeks later it’s shampoo and conditioner time and I pull Geboorte. Birth. Which sent a zing of energy through my body. A few weeks of letting go, being in Amsterdam, spending a lot of time inward, shedding the old and now birthing a new way of living of being, of honoring more and more of my truth. Yes, birthing. Thank you angel cards for that perspective, that awareness.

When I get home I see they’d accidentally put a bottle of Tween Multivitamin (perhaps because I’m looking so youthful these days?) in my bag which I return a few hours later and pull another card, Geboorte. Birth. Again. Thanks Universe for the steady reminder.

I needed it because birthing is not easy, it’s not pain free and I forget that…a lot. I think I should know by now (notice the words think and should- never a good sign) how to rock and roll these epic transitions but letting go and birthing are creative, human endeavors which means there are emotions, the mind, my body, my ego…everything’s involved in this process and there is so much we cannot control. There is loss, there is a desire for a part of me to hang on, to be comfortable and another part that is pushing and pulling to see the light of day. There are old habits, patterns and beliefs jockeying for land rights in this new landscape I’m creating. (Think of the scene from Far and Away with Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman racing on horseback through the open prairie and staking their claims with flags, except mine have words written on them “Fear” “Judgment” “Lose 10 pounds” “Wrong” alongside new beliefs "Abundance" "Sovereign" "Alchemist" "Allow" "Receive" "Beauty").

So yesterday, when it was time to restock epsom salts, my card was Genade which means Mercy/Grace.

Mercy: compassion or forgiveness shown towards someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm.

Which is exactly what I needed. Which I believe is something so much of us need. I'm really good at punishing or harming myself with my thoughts and judgments. Mercy and grace are so welcomed. These are flags I wish to stake in my new landscape.

I needed this card, this gentle swipe of energy across my heart and head for me to relax, to know all is happening in divine timing and as reminder to be kind and gentle towards myself rather than judging. My mind likes to focus on the half empty and my heart is so wanting me to see and experience the overflowing glass. I pushed too hard the last few weeks trying to birth, thinking I knew what I was birthing, when to do it…doing it the patriarchal way. Through force, through thinking, through control. So I forgive myself, for this is the way I have known, adapted to and to remember and celebrate all the times I chose to rest, write, dance, cook nourishing foods, sit in silence surrounded by candles, stroll around Amsterdam, sit in nature. To forgive myself for not doing it 'perfectly': eating chocolate when I needed to cry or feel something I didn’t want to feel, or reaching for a glass of wine or Modern Family when I could have danced, stretched or sat in nature.

And I was once again reminded of how every step of the way I am held, I am loved, I am safe- that all is well. That in following my pleasure and truth I receive sweet, profound and gentle guidance. Be it angel cards, sobbing through Hope Floats, eating under the stars of Amsterdam, Tween Multivitamins, taking an epsom salt bath, the perfect song coming on to move my body. Whatever we need comes our way...we just have to open our minds and hearts to it, allow it, welcome it in and trust it truly is exactly what we need to birth our greatest creation- ourselves.

Letting my wise wild heart guide the way

Contractions and Labor Pains…