What is Love?
Ask yourself…what is love truly…is it an ability to hug someone with great feeling, share with another’s heartfelt energy and let go and just be in that moment, regardless if it is to a sad, happy, friend, partner, relative, child, adult, animal, green, lost or found soul? ❤️
But if so, can we hug ourselves…where is our love? ❤️🙏🏽
Mark, I’m sending heartfelt hugs to you with oodles of love. Yikes, covid? I hope that you are much better now for I am months behind in catching up on my blog visits. I hope you are healed, happy and relaxing on a sunny beach! 💝
Yes I am going fine thank you Yvonne. At the time it wobbled my immune system pretty badly but my Elderberry extract kept it at bay nicely. As for your visits, you need to do you for a while. When you touch something so emotionally powerful as you have with your operation, a lot of things no longer seem important anymore and you will let them go. And those things that you never had time for? Are now riding a horse with a smile for something that is riding closer to your heart. The best thing is indeed is relaxing into your sense of self, the real one that has opened with that love you have now found. Enjoy you while you ride into the wind and sun with gladness in your heart. Big hugs and love coming at you too Yvonne. Enjoy finding you! 😀❤️🙏🏽
I’m back home in Spain after a time being with my mum💃🏼💃🏼❤️ what is love indeed… other than who we are and that expands and changes through our experience! For me now love is myself, my loving presence to share in each moment. Holding the space for whatever I or another needs. Love seems to change shape as we mature, from feeling the human love in many forms to feeling its presence that is no longer separate from our experience with self and others❤️ Thankyou Mark for challenging us to feel into love and remember love is hugging us all the time! My mum gave me a beautiful warm orange blanket for my couch saying wrap it around you and remember you are loved always❤️💃🏼🎶 Sending love🥰 Do you know you have covid because of a test or how you feel, is it different than a cold or the flu? Lots of vit C and zinc work too🥰 take care x
Hey Barbara, your comment is love’s magic dear lady, you have expressed it beautifully and I thank you for sharing it. Your journey has touched so many places inside you my dear friend as only it can do, and see that it does, even though painful, open us in so many ways to appreciate what it is showing us. Your glowing well dear lady, take a bow. What you have been through takes great courage and heart. And your mum has done well, as all mums do, a blanket full of love. It will always be wrapped around you no matter where you are ❤️🙏🏽
I have gone a little quiet due to (tested) covid and because I have emphysema and an allergic reaction to the cortico steroids I am on for it, it has created a mess of my immune system and so far I’ve had five different Dr’s, a hospital and everyone in between scratching their heads. So, my apologies I’m not your normal responder to the covid. I took an elderberry product (Sambucol), that works like the new antiviral they have out by binding the spikes of the virus and slows the virus’s reproduction which then gives your immune system time to get up and hit it. You still get it but nowhere near as hard, it can reduce it back to 3 or 4 days. It reduced mine but because of my whacky immune system I have a chronic fatigue now that if is like a friend of mine is still going hard after six weeks so I shall have to pray a little harder for some oxygen 🤣 Thank you very much for care and concern, it is very appreciated Barbara 😀❤️🙏🏽
And just a side note to everyone else, I’m on a tropical island, sipping pina colada’s in the shade of a palm tree,…… well, I am feeling tired and drowsy, sipping lots of water, and if it wasn’t winter here I would be out in the sun. I shall return soon 🤣❤️🙏🏽
Oh Barbara, I forgot. It’s just like a bad flu and you have to test it to tell the difference. But most people with a normal immune have been getting over it like any other flu. The only real hiccup is if your immune is compromised in some way like mine, otherwise you’ll be up and dancing in no time. And I’m taking lots of that good stuff too 😀❤️🙏🏽
Glad you are on the mend Mark and taking yourself to that swing under the palm tree where all our dreams can manifest! 😇 Yes my heartbreak is taking me deep within that at times I get really confused, so I just relax and breathe accepting it all… under that magical palmtree❤️ much love and healing your way dear mark🕺🌈🥰
Thank you kind lady and blessings gratefully received. You are ‘breathing’ well my friend and among it all that love inside is sharing that compassion profoundly, especially on those days that seem to test us. Big hugs Barbara, and much love to add to your heart as it opens to that light within 😀❤️🙏🏽
I often tell my son he hasn’t met his quota of hugs for the day:). And then I bear hug him. We all need to feel loved and that contact is so important . . .
Very much so Kristine, it touches places that we have had tucked away…protected…and that one moment of ‘let go’ is like tons of healing in a moment…if we let it 😀 I hope you are well dear lady, you now have much ‘truthful’ sympathy and empathy for your journey. I got covid on monday. Mind you I cheated, I’ve been taking an elderberry extract that binds the covid cells and allows the immune system to build up more to handle it and so it doesn’t hit as hard, thankfully. Thank you for sharing dear lady, and much love and light…and a hug, for this beautiful day in paradise 😀❤️🙏🏽
Oh, Mark! I am so sorry that you have Covid. I certainly hope that it doesn’t hit you as hard. I had it for a second time in May and had to go on an antiviral. Covid it seems to really love me. Hopefully it will not love you and decide you’re not worth it’s time and move on! Take it easy and get plenty of sunshine.
Oh great Kristine, once is enough without dancing to it again. You poor soul. I hope it will lose interest in me also, I’m looking forward to some fresh air and sunshine. Thank you for your thoughts dear lady, and may it also put you on its ‘not to visit’ list too 😀❤️🙏🏽
So many are afraid to hug on account of all that has transpired. How very sad. That hasn’t stopped me, however, and those who are open to hugs, do get them from me. What is love? Love is many things and yes hugs is most definitely one of them.
Hey Amy, I feel a hug each time you come online dear lady 🤣 And glad to hear your voice again. I think hugs should be a greeting for everyone, help to bring us out of our fears and make life just a whole new place, one of that affection instead of isolation. Yes, I know we have to go through all these things but it should be available for those that need it. Maybe we ‘huggers’ could wear a sticker on our foreheads that says ‘free hugs’ 🤣❤️🙏🏽
Your words are full of loving energy, Mark. Love is felt. ❤️
Indeed Jane, it is a vibration beyond words, an energy that ever holds us completely within it. Now all we have to do is let go those walls around our hearts to it, and we too will be full of its energy. And thank you for sharing your energy kind lady 😀❤️🙏🏽
Our love is the way in which we treat others. Respect and love for our selves translates to respect and love to others. How open we are to ourselves and our own feelings is as open as we can be with others. 🙏 as always, you make me think! (Gardenia in the snow aka Tamara on wordpress)
Thank you Tamara, I get the occasional anonymous so putting your name there did well. And our love is indeed what comes from us…if we are angry, we give out that anger. If we are happy, we give out that happiness. And we also only ever give out what ability we have to love ourselves. We are full of doubts and fears which block us and the love we give out. But that has a great purpose, we need to feel it all so that we can understand our ‘conditional’ love so that when we finally go through those fears we will finally, truly understand the unconditional love that is waiting for us to be it by letting those conditions go. We can only ever truly appreciate happiness if we have experienced sadness too, and on through all those beautiful emotions that are us so that our destination will be a very profound love indeed. Thank you for sharing kind lady 😀❤️🙏🏽
This is one of my life’s theme. Love. Love of self. Seeking compassion for others and getting to that place of unconditional love that our house pets have for us. (it may be in another incarnation. haha) I “love” love.
It is the driver of us all kind lady. Even if we don’t think we have it, it pushes us to go beyond those thoughts and see what has always been there. The one thing that has always amazed me is that we always attract (with great love), the one person who will ask/push/ignore us into looking within, understanding us in who we are, to begin those changes so that our walls will come down and see what has always been waiting for us to acknowledge. And yes, it hurts, but what is waiting is a beauty beyond words, and in doing so we will understand and appreciate truly that it must happen this way to find that empathy, compassion and love for ourselves (and others), that is there in going through it.
Thank you for sharing dear lady, may that love ever ask you to take another step within 😀❤️🙏🏽
I resonate with this. 🥰💗❤️
I think first we should love ourselves 💗 well shared thanks 👍
We only ever give out what we are. To love ourselves is in fact loving others as well. Thank you for sharing your love here Priti 😀❤️🙏🏽
It’s my pleasure stay blessed 🤗🥰
Starts with us for sure. Great reminder, Mark that we should start loving ourselves.
Hey Michele, glad to hear a very loving voice. We will get there, it just takes a little while to understand us.
Thank you for sharing your love kind lady 😀❤️🙏🏽
How can we ever fully or eloquently ever describe what Love is.. When one truly feels love it is all encompassing, its peace, its bliss, its contentment, its compassion, its harmony, its empowering, its joyous, its happiness… Its BE-ing…. In the moment of Truly knowing and nurturing and loving yourself beyond words..
And when we are able to hug ourselves our heart expands and opens in ways we never knew before…
Words…. are inadequate in describing a Feeling is beyond Words..
May we all find the true meaning of LOVE… ❤️ 🙂 ❤️
Excellent Mark ❤️
Ah dear lady, indeed it is such a wondrous thing. It does touch everything and it is only us blocking it in every way imaginable. But as I have found in that blocking, it leaves us questioning its lack, simply because in that first separation from it we have ever sought to find that love and happiness in our lives. It has always been our number one focus, and without it we question, question, question. It is only then in ‘our’ love that we realize our fears…and then truly appreciate love when it is found.
And you are right, there are no words to even come close to that unconditional love. My touch of it in my journey showed me such an incredible moment that ‘down here’ does not come close, yet we feel so powerful in that moment we fall in love here. Like all other emotions we must experience and feel them all so that we can truly appreciate the other when it is found.
Thank you Sue, for sharing your heart as it too expands and opens into that place that can only be felt and understood as we become it 😀❤️🙏🏽
Beautifully said Mark. Thank you.
That’s why words often fail me for the feelings just burst out of one’s heart as tears release its joy. 💕💖💕
That it does dear lady. Confining it with words doesn’t do it justice 😀❤️🙏🏽
Agreed ❤️ 🙂
English has utilised one word and attempted to use it to encapsulate something that is simply too nefarious and at the same time personal. Greek has nine different words for love ,https://www.greecehighdefinition.com/blog/9-different-types-of-love-according-to-the-ancient- and modern greeks Philia, soul connection, Pragma mature love, Storge devoted love, Eros,sexual desire, Ludus palyful love, Mania Obsessive love, Philautia self love, Agape unconditional love and Meraki, creative endevours, to do something with love (Modern Greek).
So for me having a broader sense provides at least in my personal appreciation a far more realistic and removed from the romanticised English word love. Simplyfying language does not always make it simple. Far easier is to know when there is no love in your life. For me love is life.
Beautifully worded Tazzie, and love does indeed belong in…well, everything. And I think we are all within its spectrum depending on where we are in our life. I try to keep it simple so many can understand, but then may need to specialize something to give an understanding from there. But personally, if I can ‘feel’ a heart, regardless of where it has been, I know its journey has not been an easy one, and as long as I have gained an empathy and compassion because of that, it has hopefully knocked on my door so I can ‘see’ it and understand, and then share what I have found.
And you are very right, ‘no love’ leaves a very hard footprint so hopefully I can at least show an understanding, a little light by being a sign post and give a direction so that others may have hope in their journey. Of all the things that seem to be the most difficult, it is the confusion of all of our emotions. This life, thankfully, is deciphering them well, if slowly, so that we can see the beauty of that love. And I thank you for sharing yours, it gives even more knowledge to follow.that others may find within it as you have, that touch that opens a heart truly 😀❤️🙏🏽
What is love… I don’t know how often I asked myself the question, wrote about it, and found definitions only to throw them over board again. It depends on how far we think. Do we think about human love like the love between two people, parents and children, friends, or the love to what we do? They all are different in the way we feel, still, they are love. But love doesn’t differ. Love doesn’t judge. Love is love, a stable force, the creator of all that is. How can we, as the creation of love define love? We can only perceive it. I think, the more we try to explain love, the less we understand it. Meanwhile, when I hear the word love, I don’t think about two people in a relationship. Love is so much more. It is the force that brought them together but at the same time, it is the force that has been running through them and attracting them. AND it is the force that challenges each other to learn what love is or even better: what it is not.
Gosh, maybe I repeated myself and I don’t know if this all makes sense but your question is pure inspiration and I thank you for making me think about love again.
Have a lovely day, Mark!
Wow, I should have got you to write the post dear lady. All perfectly understood, and all you have said is indeed what love is. It is there, always. But our journey separates us from it so that we can feel what it is NOT, so that when touched we will finally understand what it is. And it is a journey of questions so that we will dare to see us within this path we take 😀
Now, about my next post? 🤣 Thank you Erika, a lovely reply beautifully written, it shows us that unique soul that we are 😀❤️🙏🏽
It is amazing what your question triggered. Love is so much then it simply is love. Just love, In the end, love is all that exists becaus all that exists comes from love. Even the painful stuff which only helps us to stay or get back to love and remember love. I think, I could go on and on… lol
Thank you for this wonderful inspiriation, Mark, and I am looking forward to your next post 😁
I thank you for your great replies Erika, your first a stunner and I had to read it a few times to really ‘feel’ its worth…must have been written with a very loving heart indeed my friend, thank you 😀❤️🙏🏽
It just flew out of my fingers, my thoughts were faster than fingers could write. That’s why I hoped it would all make sense… lol. Btw. you inspired me for a post. You know, I love talking about love. I found it (or thought so) in so many ways and that made me take a step back at all the fractals to see a bigger picture. I wonder when we will be able to see the whole jigsaw puzzle…
So, thank you for you inspiration and inputs, dear Mark. There is so much love in your words that reach a deep place in your readers 💖 (btw…. what about the book idea…hehe)
Oh, the book? 🤣 Interestingly I appear to be waiting for something. Something I need to see and understand (probably me 😂), before I can fire it up 😀. But it will happen, even if just in my heart. That is why I do so much here, just in case 😀
And yes, it does just fly out of our fingers, simply because we get out of our physical way and let our spirituality flow. A lot of what I do is ‘get out of my own way’ so that the truth of that love can speak and can be set free. Unconditional love is like air, it flows into everything on gossamer wings so that everything can feel it, sense its worth and power, and know its beauty in its touch ❤️
And on that day I ‘touched’ unconditional love…and trust me, there really is no words…but…like falling in love, you really can’t put it into words, the feeling just goes all through us in every aspect of our nature, but unconditional is that and so much more. You ‘know’ everything, but don’t need to because you have let everything go. You can touch meaning in everything, but don’t need to. You can just be, touch it all in an instant…but don’t need to. And thinking (and this process is so slow compared to ‘up there’), about this now it feels it may be from here that we can ‘let go’ and come back, go to ‘other’ parts of ‘life’, as in there is more than this life. But I do not ‘know’ of it (now there is a contradiction) 😂. Anyway, I thank you for your loving share too dear lady, may love connect wherever it may be 😀❤️🙏🏽
Oh, my gosh, so much that needs to be shared. So much that brings healing to this world and everyone in it. Maybe you only need to know how to put this all in words or how to put all of the words in order. Love is more than this physical world with its symbols (words). So, how can words ever suffice or describe the power that created us…
However, I cannot wait for your book to read 😁
There is indeed lots ‘inside and out’ in this world dear lady, I am given a perception so that it may be shared to any that it reflects to. And as we all do in our own ways and attract accordingly. And the book…you have to write in that don’t you? 🤣
My writing tends to ‘flow’ so I may see about a voice to text software so that when it comes through it will be easier…and the book can speak sooner. Oh, and Spirit even passed on a title of which I won’t share here just yet. But it was quite unusual but distinct in what it said in itself. So, I must be ‘getting ready’ then 😀
Thank you for sharing as always kind lady, may your book sing from the heart as well 😀❤️🙏🏽
Thank you, Mark. I have been working on it again, just a few minutes ago. So, after your reply, I am even more curious now. It is great to see, how you already follow the flow… Much love, Mark!
And much love to you also Erika, and thank you ❤️🙏🏽
💖
Our love is never far if we believe in it.
Indeed Pam, it is never far away at all…it’s just the ‘sunglasses’ we wear.
Thank you for sharing your love kind lady 😀❤️🙏🏽
I love this! Your words point me in the direction of where I want to go ❤️Today I feel that love is the energy inside that is bubbling up and bursting out of my eyeballs in appreciation for all that is 💜the tears of just….I don’t know – love god – . I am currently on my god walk at the golf course where I live and I can see love in the bunnies and birds…and the green grass and I can feel it with the tingles I get in the back of my head ❤️❤️❤️
Ah Danielle, in daring your truth by facing your fears…your heart opens to a love so powerful. You begin to ‘see’ things that have always been there but covered by your fears. And inside your heart an energy increases, the energy of love. And while ever you stand in its truth, its integrity, it will always be there 😀❤️🙏🏽
Love is such a powerful force and I sometimes have a difficult time putting it into words. It’s like being blindfolded and tasting something that wakens your pallet then discovering the ingredients with time.
It’s there for all mankind to embrace. It compels you to go inward, flow outward, and take risks for what you truly believe and tasting each ingredient as if it was your first. I believe it’s all around us 💕🕊💕
Beautifully said Linda. Of course only a poet from the heart could describe it so freely as you have. And so true, it is indeed made of many ingredients, each awakening a different part of us in our hearts travels.
Thank you for sharing your love dear lady 😀❤️🙏🏽