Slices of Life Exploring love

Slices of Life

Exploring love

By Jill Pertler

“We’ve been infected with this idea that love is an emotion only felt between two people. But love is a universal energy.” A.R. Lucas

Today, let’s explore the topic of love.

I think when we look back at life - at the end of it all - what we’ll remember most is love. And, as was referenced above, not just the romantic love we’ve experienced, but ALL of it, every bit of it. Love is all around us, every second of every day, if we are open and aware. Receiving as well as giving. I know that may sound corny, but it truth (with a capital T).

Love fuels the soul. It makes the heart beat a little faster. It makes us catch our breath and causes our lips to curl upward. It improves our mood and makes life worth living. Love comes in many forms. It can be spectacular and it can be everyday - and everything in-between.

Noticing the beauty of dewy water droplets on blades of grass in the morning is love.

A mama duck leading a trail of her ducklings across the path is love.

Feeling the positive energy in a smile from a stranger is love.

A sunrise. A sunset. A full moon. A starry night. All love when seen and felt from the heart.

The same can be said for helping a turtle cross the road. Feeding birds in the winter. Rescuing a spider from your kitchen and bringing it outside.

Love isn’t complicated. It’s superbly simple when pure and done right. When done from within - from the heart.

Many of us live under the misconception that love comes from without - from other people, from the world at large. I don’t believe this to be true. Real love comes from within. It starts there, grows there and blooms there.

Once you embrace the love from within - truly embrace and accept it. Once you open yourself fully to it and understand its importance to your well-being and joy, then you can appreciate and enjoy the love all around you. You will be more open to accepting love because you are fully encompassed on spreading your own.

As you sow your seeds and spread and grow this love outward, it returns to you exponentially, because you can’t give love without receiving it in return. That’s just how the universe operates. You benefit just as much from the love you give as from the love you receive - maybe even more so.

That’s the magic in it.

I think of the concept of love like an ice cream sundae. It starts with a scoop of ice cream at its core. It wouldn’t be a sundae without the ice cream. This is the love that comes from within.

Love from the world at large - people, animals, hobbies, passions, nature - is the whipped cream, hot fudge, sprinkles and other toppings. They enhance the sundae but without the ice cream, you are left with a bowl of condiments. They can’t stand alone. Without the base of ice cream, they fall flat.

The same goes for your ability to love others if you don’t first love yourself.

We talk of unconditional love. When my husband first left this earth, I reflected on our great love story and made it my goal to love even better and more fully in the future. I wanted to love other people unconditionally.

But I’ve changed my mind - or at least my choice of words. I’ve come to the conclusion that the term unconditional love is sort of an unnecessary phrase and perhaps even repetitive.

All love should be unconditional. Putting conditions on love negates it. It makes it less than love. Love, felt truly, madly, deeply from the heart is infinite and without conditions. It is love - plain and simple. Miraculous. Wonder-filled and wonderful. Infinite, expanding, without beginning or end. Love traverses time and thought. It is bigger than any of us as individuals, yet it lives individually within each of us. It encompasses us all. It is both within and without.

It just is. Now and forever. Beyond the end of “time” as we perceive it.

And that thought, I think, is unconditionally beautiful and even (if you’ll forgive me) lovely.

(Jill Pertler is an award-winning syndicated columnist, published playwright, author and member of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Don’t miss a slice; follow the Slices of Life page on Facebook.)