An Ode to Love
From my heart to yours.
I love love. It has been innate in me since I was a young girl. I dreamed of weddings, wrote love letters to my boyfriends, was moved by romantic gestures, and to this day, it still rings true.
I am a hopeless romantic. I buy books on how to be romantic, I love listening to love songs, watch romantic movies, and have an obsession with Outlander… why, you guessed it, their love. I melt and gush for romantic surprises, love letters, words of acknowledgment, flowers for no reason, chivalry, old soulful music about romance, and being in the energy of love. It brightens my heart and makes me smile.
And although I will forever be a hopeless romantic, my idea of love and what that means has changed over time. As I have transcended a fantasy fairy tale of what love and romance should be, I understand love to be oh so much deeper than all of those things combined.
Love has looked like deep acceptance—for myself, my life, and my difficult upbringing.
Love has looked like a fierce commitment to shifting patterns that run deep in my bones.
Love has looked like looking inward—loving and holding every part of my being—light, dark, messy, happy, sad, and beyond. It looked like gazing into my own eyes and seeing the divinity of my soul—then turning around and giving that love when all parts of me wanted to close.
Love has looked like finally falling in love with cooking and baking, making it an artful expression after a lifetime of burning…boiling water.
Love has looked like acknowledging my resistances when they pop up—laughing at myself, praying for clarity and then gently moving through them.
Love has looked like dancing naked in the moonlight, feeling the bare earth beneath my feet and the moon's light illuminating my soul.
Love has felt like owning my sensuality and pleasure, for myself.
Love has looked like meditating and praying by myself for hours in the deep quiet of night as forty candles illuminated the darkness.
Love has looked like becoming friends with my sensitive heart and understanding that the person I show to the world is quite different from my deep inner process of pure tenderness. Then, finally, allowing myself to be seen in my tenderness.
Love has looked like placing fierce boundaries for the things, people, and behaviors that made my body shake in agony. Knowing my "no" and owning it so strongly that I could truly open to my "yes."
Love has looked like merging with the light and love of divinity and letting it permeate every fiber of my being.
Love has looked like facing my shadow, the ugliest parts of myself that I shame and even hate, and bringing the utmost love and compassion to them.
Love has looked like becoming intimate with my rage and letting it move out and through me.
Love has looked like becoming friends with my sadness… sitting with it, listening to what it has to say, often accompanied by the song “Hello Darkness, My Old Friend.”
Love has looked like being devoted to another—and coming back to love whenever I get stuck in my patterns of closure. Allowing the power and awareness of love to transcend my ego when it wants to run away, fight, and set everything ablaze.
And yet, with all the work I've done to cultivate love within myself, there are still days of sadness, days when I forget the love I am. Every day I practice remembering who I truly am—sometimes with great clarity and humor, other days with tears, and other days with utter romance. Because for me, love is all there is, and all there ever will be.
My beloved,
Whatever way love wants to move through you, let it. Let your heart open to all the different shapes and forms love wants to move through you. Know deeply what moves you to love, what opens your heart, and have a sacred personal practice to open over and over and over again, letting love infuse every part of your being. For all that you are is love.
Love, Natalia