DAY 567

in {and out} Week 6: Love

After a week listening to messages about love I have little to say. Many random facts about love come to my mind once and again but I don´t find them especially illuminating. In fact, most of them are pretty obvious and some a bit confusing or even paradoxical.

Love seems to be the ultimate human aspiration and as result, the ultimate market strategy, and this has created a whole tangle made of preconceived ideas and misconceptions that condition us both mentally and emotionally. We live according a social constructed idea of love that seems contradictory because cannot embrace what love really is.

Trying to live that lineal, pure, perfect (or simply false) version of love is just a deception that is not compatible with our human nature. Love is intrinsically linked to our own story and process and happens in tune with them and the only thing we can do is observing and experiencing it and learning what it has to teach us. Indeed, love is great master.

If we do that, we will see that love is all the things that philosophers, scientists, tradition, publicists and poets have told us… and much more, maybe because it is the most complex human sentiment.

 Love is fierce and bold and radiant and passionate. It is also tolerant and patient and generous and free. It is inevitable but can be cultivated. It´s infectious but cannot be forced. It´s endless but can be killed.  It´s a mess but can be lived consciously. It is boundless but needs bonds. It is unconditional but occurs conditionally.

Love is deeply compassionate. It has to be consistently respectful and kind. It helps us to transcend ego but (if we don´t pay attention) can make us selfish or just a simply puppet.  It is healing force, in particular when we direct its light towards ourselves It´s pure chemistry, brain waves, energy and also a spiritual force.

The list goes on and on and on… love is all and nothing, it is real, but also a mystery and a miracle. It is impossible to define and difficult to interpret, it resists being confined in a simple phrase, being reduced to a single moment but this shouldn´t concern us very much,  because when the good, old, true love come to our lives we always recognize it.


This entry is part of a project I am developing with my friend Montse Gallardo. We´ll share a photo every week during 2015. Her photos will be always taken outside and my photos will be indoor shots only. We have created a Facebook page: In and Out. 52 weeks where you can see all the photos of the project.  

DAY 566

about love

“When we are in relationship as our own radiant emptiness, the relationship is beautiful because we are being what we are. Essentially we are in love with a mystery. Mystery is in love with itself. When this mystery is in relationship with an other, whether the so-called other is the flower, the bird, the wind, the coldness, or a human being, it relates to these as an expression of the same mystery. This is true sacred relationship, when we see that we are really in relationship with the manifestation of the mystery.”

Adyashanti

DAY 365+125

hearts beating together 

"When you begin to touch your heart or let your heart be touched, you begin to discover that it's bottomless, that it doesn't have any resolution, that this heart is huge, vast, and limitless. You begin to discover how much warmth and gentleness is there, as well as how much space."

Pema Chodron

I am still updating my self-portraits page, you can see them here

DAY 297

about caring 

My mother is getting a lot better. She has a heart and kidney failure due to age and hypertension, apart from poor mobility, and she started to retain liquid. It went to her lungs, which is not good at all because this makes the conditions of her heart and kidney even worse, which can be dangerous as she will be 88 next november

Regardless if I like it or not, the thing is that she has became more dependent last year, and she needs our cares more than ever before

Sometimes, when I talk about this with some of my siblings, I feel overly dramatic... it´s like I am being too gloomy, when I am just realistic. I only try to represent things in a way that is accurate and true to my mom´s circumstances. I try to focus on solutions, not on problems, and mainly in the fact that she needs our help and love (not only professional assistance) right now, not tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, but today.  We won´t have endless chances to do it, we will only have this life, this time, this moment  

Of course, one of the underlying reasons that justify this can be that this is a significant stage, but it is not the only one. As far as I am concerned, the main reason why I think we should do this is she deserves it. She has always deserved it, but before she was strong and capable and now she is fragile and vulnerable

Undoubtedly, we cannot leave our lives adrift because our mother needs us, but we will have to check our priorities, it is a matter of affection and responsability. I am checking my own ones already, but I am determined not  to check or judge theirs. The last decision is up to them 

In any case, I will do what I think I have to do, because the way I want to approach this moment is something that is not between me and my siblings, is something that is between me and my mother, me and my own conscious


PS: My mother has been ill, she is getting better, and this is why I am behind with my post. Now that I am a bit quieter, I am transcribing my impressions of previous days 

DAY 265

my baby just cares for playing

...that´s why she needs to have a pretty good rest after noon

I am not going to tell the whole story once again but this precious kitty has made a great difference in our lives. She loves to share our little family´s routines and is the most playful and participative cat I ever seen

I started to think of having  a new kitty and writing  a blog at the same time. And she came to our house unexpectedly the same month I published my first posts almost by chance

Both of them have been awesome gifts even when last summer I could not imagine that today I would be writing this, that I could feel so amazingly blessed

Life can become captivating when we follow our heart...

DAY 257

and there he was

Back home

carrying sadness, tiredness, feeling fragile and vulnerable, hopeful and proud, nostalgic and happy

looking for a good rest, wanting to chat and longing for silence at the same time, wanting to socialize and to stay alone, wishing to share and to keep your sentiments for yourself

needing meditation and a big hug, expecting the well known routines and missing so much what you have left behind

wanting to be loved but feeling more reserved and introverted than ever because you feel your heart displaced

dealing with a emotions that puzzle you and feeling guilty because you cannot be easier

knowing that the first day a turmoil of contradictory sentiments is going to devastate any glimpse of normality and even so, being sure that this is the place where you belong

Back home carrying this burden is not easy

But you can be lucky enough to find there a person who is generous enough to open his arms regardless your mood, kind enough to respect your needs, gentle enough to take care of you, compassionate enough to understand you, good enough to love you as you are and wise enough to give you the time you need to be present again

I am that lucky person, he is that gentle person

what else can I say...