The faucet's always running

Listen to this post:



Though I adore her, I have to disagree with Tina Turner. Love is not an emotion, not even second hand.
Love is the Ultimate Truth. It's the medium in which we are created, fostered, live, die, transition and transform. It is the constant. Love is above emotion; it's what feeds our souls, makes us soar, dream and do the impossible.

We don't often experience love as truth. Arguably because, as humans, it's almost impossible to love unconditionally. Although my children have taught me much about Ultimate Truth.

I felt it live, real and close up yesterday, staring into the intensely gentle eyes of my shamanic counselor. I blinked and looked away a few times because it was so powerful, yet I didn't want to break the spell. It completely filled me: every nook and cranny, every ache and pain, every empty and lonely spot.

"Look into my left eye," Gary said. I gazed at his one eye.

"No my left," he chuckled. Know I would trust this man with my life and do anything he suggested. He has brought me back to my life many times.

So I complied, at first without my glasses, looking at the fuzzy darkened circle directly across from me. Everything else melted, though I was bodily aware of being there. The facet was on full force streaming into the middle of my chest and quickly dissipating toward all of my wounds, like warm, healing helium infiltrating my mind, body and spirit.

I remembered who I was ... fully.

We broke and Gary said sometimes it's so much that it's scary. To me, it more consuming, merely requiring TOTAL surrender.

We practiced a second time with my glasses. I experienced the same, except with more visual clarity. I think I preferred the blurry edges because my heart came forward faster.

Gary recently spent five days in Hawaii one-on-one with spiritual teacher Ram Dass and I noticed the change, though Gary always provides whatever I need even when I don't know or haven't learned it yet. I suspect that is where he was taught the eye-gazing-feel-real-Love practice.

I had been collecting pieces of this constant entity all week:

In days at the hospital being with my mother and observing her patience, the gentle care she received as well as how she accepted it. And again Monday evening when I met a close friend in the ER of the same hospital [thought I'd gotten at least a one-day hiatus from this place], who inspired the staff with her happiness while her heart raced through the roof. "I'm an angel of God," she told them. They believed her. She's closer to God than anyone I know. Never mind that's she's unemployed and has no health insurance. Love transcends those barriers.

And through the transportation of music at Friday's Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra last concert with Maestro Paavo Jarvi. The notes just move through that man unlike anything I've ever experienced. His body is an instrument itself. One violinist threw her entire being into the performance and I wondered how exhausted she'd be after. All of the musicians did ... probably following their leaders example. That, however, was secondary to the energy and power of the music. Creation and a collectedness made tangible. That was echoed two nights ago at my seventh-graders' band concert. The focus and delight of the budding musicians was every bit as powerful as the professionals.

I feel like my cup runneth over this week – even in the midst of seemingly nonstop caregiving and the not-so-conducive institutional atmosphere of the hospital.

I am beginning to believe the faucet is always running whenever I need a drink.

• How would I describe my experience of pure love?
• What happens when I have?
• What other kinds are there?
• When have I felt like the conduit?
• How am I able to give and receive?


the little trickles
were thrilling, filling
and healing


I almost missed them,
save for the spark


but the rush of the
BIG gush was almost
too much


asking of me
only one thing:
surrender


yes, I answer