When you ask the universe for courage, it doesn’t give you courage. It gives you lessons with which you can learn courage. It’s up to us to take the course of action that will build our courage.

The first part of last year was amazing for me. I pushed through a lot of challenges quickly, becoming a sex worker, starting a raw foods diet, and learning to be more authentic in my daily life. I felt a surge of new energy fueled by my enthusiasm and a boost from getting rid of old energy drains and creating more compatible situations for myself. I felt happier, more energetic, and more connected to the world around me than I ever had before.

About halfway into the year, the natural high I was on started to ebb. Things started to becoming more difficult and I experienced a lot of emotional blows. I felt like I was constantly having to defend my work (even to others in the same field). I was arrested, experienced a huge culture shock while trying to find ways to make money and process what was happening. I had to quit raw foods, committed to a whole new set of responsibilities to help me feel like I was still in control, and had my heart broken.

I tried to keep the same level of energy and positive feelings that I had started off with, but it got harder and harder as time went on and I felt more and more frustrated. I started to doubt myself and wondered where I had gone wrong. I had been so sure about the choices that I was making, so why wasn’t it working? Why was I suffering?

A little over a week ago, I sat by the river the day of the Spring Equinox with a close friend of mine. We talked and during our conversation, I shared my frustration and the growing disconnect I was feeling. I realized something very important. I had lost my faith.

It had happened slowly, over the course of many events. I had continued to act and speak as if I was on the same path, but I no longer felt the passion and spark in my heart. I had been hurt and frustrated when things didn’t turn out as I expected them to. Instead of letting go with love and holding to my vision for what I wanted, I tried to shut it off the pain, bury it and race towards the next challenge before I was ready. I wanted to stop feeling hurt and instead of working within myself to heal the attitudes and expectations that had caused that hurt, I avoided the big challenges that could hurt me again and stopped moving forward. I started attracting energy dramas and asinine obstacles that left me feeling tired and depressed.

Over the next few days, I started working on tearing down the walls I’d put up around myself. I cried, sang, danced, and drummed. I began working on new stories and creative projects. I admitted to myself how running away from my hurt had facilitated the situations in my present life that were unhealthy. I forgave myself and others.

Anytime you follow a path, especially against the grain, you are going to face challenges that seem like they can’t be overcome. That’s why they’re challenges. Facing these challenges is a part of growth and how we become stronger. The universe had been challenging me to live up to my intentions, helping me to become the person who could accomplish those things and I held back. I let the big new challenges with teeth scare me because the first ones had been easy. I let fear weaken me and eventually drain me dry, instead of gathering my love, courage, and strength to help me overcome them.

Today, I feel strong. It’s spring and I’m celebrating my failures as experiences where I built strength of spirit and character. If I want to keep developing, I’m going to have to believe in myself and the universe, even when I’m in pain or confused. I can’t be attached to any particular outcome and have to learn the inner serenity to hold the vision of what I want in my heart despite outside influences. Hopefully it won’t take me six months to realize that next time.

I have to believe, be open, be strong, and be brave. I have to be a warrior of love.

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I’ve caught myself thinking the last few days about how differently I would interact with my loved ones now if I hadn’t been through the challenges in my past. If I’d never been hurt, would I be better than I am? If I’d never been disappointed, could I speak my mind more? If I’d never cried, maybe I wouldn’t worry about getting hurt?

We can wish to change the past, but I think deep down we know that we are who we are because of it. If I hadn’t had my heart broken, I wouldn’t have the strength that I feel quickening my blood, strength that comes from having had to rebuild when my world fell apart. I wouldn’t trust myself to rise to the challenges my path leads me down. I know, through the dark and confusing times, that I have a fire inside me that believes fiercely in love and that even if I don’t know what will happen, that I have to do what I can.

When I talk about love, the first thing that enters into people’s minds is romantic love. But I’ll say it again and again – love is more universal than that. Romance is an expression of love, but it isn’t what love is. It has infinite ways of expressing itself. The love I feel for my friends is no less than the love I feel for lovers or family. The love I feel for someone will change and evolve through knowing them and the changes happening in our lives. One expression of love (romantic) is not better or worse than another (familial). We simply express love in whatever channel is appropriate at the time. Love can be like fire, desire and passion driving us to action or intimacy… but love can also be like water, filling us and flowing through us. There is the spark of new love and discovery of a kindred spirit, as well as the deep love built from time, understanding, and trust. Love is a mystery. We are awed by it. We search for it, even though it’s all around us. Love is a primal force.

Love doesn’t ask us to be perfect or pure. It asks us to allow it into our lives. We all have something to offer, whatever phase of our journey we’re in. There is beauty in the love of an innocent heart that has never known pain, but there is equal beauty and worth in love that comes from a heart that we have pieced back together. There is hope and strength in a heart that chooses to ignite itself in the dark. Making the decision to love despite confusion and fear and past pain is a powerful thing. That decision invites love in and shows that we want something stronger, better, more aligned with who we are. It’s in that desire to be more than we have been before that we find power, truth, and nobility in love.

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The last few nights I’ve been feeling really restless. My dreams have been smoky and symbolic, women in threes, old overgrown gardens, strange ancient houses, voices speaking the names of old gods long sleeping. There have been so many messages and I feel like I can’t hold them all. They fade with the dawn and under the concerns of living in the physical world.

When I agreed to act as a servant of love, I didn’t believe I had anything to offer and though I put myself in her hands, I thought Aphrodite a frivolous goddess. When I thought of love, I often thought of a group of attributes, or qualities that I wanted in a partner, or a warm safe feeling that would soothe my fears and nurture me. I thought I knew what love was, and the more I follow this path, the more I realize how much I have to learn.

Love is all around us. It connects us to people, places, and objects. It’s the force that moves the universe, the life blood of creation. Every action we take, we take for love, for desire of a feeling, an experience, a person. And yet, to love is one of the scariest, hardest things we can do. I’ve often been caught up in thinking of love as quantifiable… that I have a limited source that I give to a specific someone in exchange for equal value of service, caring, etc. That if I run out, I need someone else to fill up that space for me. Sometimes I wonder if it was a cosmic joke for Aphrodite to take a lonely, dreamy little moon child and walk her down the trials of love, to see what she could become.

The funny thing about love is the more I give, the more I have. Not because one person or another gives it to me, but because the act of loving aligns me with a greater source of universal love. When I act out of love, I invite it into my life and carve a greater space within myself for love to flow through my being. I step deeper into love’s realm and that is my reward, more than any act of affection or caring than anyone can show me.

When we search for “love”, we are searching for many things that we associate with that label. The desire for love can be a mask for the desire for attention, sexual pleasure, sensual pleasure, care giving, protecting, teaching, sharing. We establish patterns early on that we continue to act out of, thinking if we can find the perfect person or the perfect way of explaining ourselves we will have those needs met and be happy.

Love is so much more than that. Love asks that we be gentle but strong, open and changing but centered in who we are, vulnerable and courageous. Love asks us to take chances again and again, even when we are tired and weathered. Love asks for us for our nobility, for us strive to be more than we have been. Love can bring us what we ask for, but the greater mystery is when love brings us what we didn’t know we needed.

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February is Radical Self Love (RSL) month over at Gala Darling’s. Here are some questions she posted as homework and my answers!

What does Radical Self Love mean to you?
Radical Self Love to me means self love that is strong, vibrant, glowing, a defining part of your everyday life. It’s when self love is a major player in the choices we make and we get a charge from doing things that express self-love.

If you were engaging in RSL on a daily basis, what would that look like?
Delight with my life and the amazing things happening. Balance in the activities I choose to help me be the best I can be. Self-reliance because I know that I’m the only one who can create what I dream of.

What small pieces of that can you bring into your life TODAY?

♥ I can start every day with a fruit smoothie for breakfast. It’s raw, delicious, so so so good for my system, easy to make, and makes me feel great.

♥ Spacing out my daily activities so that I have time to eat, rest, or just enjoy the beauty of the day. I can’t be happy or productive if I’m rushing around worrying all the time.

♥ Continue building my bike. I’m not very good with tools or building things, but this winter I started working on a bike at the Bike Dump and I love it! She’s a lovely dark pink/red colour and I named her Katy-Scarlett. By the time I take her out, I want to know her inside and out and be competent to fix her when something happens.

♥ Dance. Dance. Dance. And hula hooping.

What beliefs do you currently hold that are stifling your regular expression of RSL?
I’m intuitive and sensitive to people’s moods and energy. Combine that with an affinity for healing and I’m prone to making excuses for the people around me when they engage in patterns that I know are unhealthy for me and suspect are unhealthy for them. In the past, I’ve enabled those patterns by not speaking my mind, calling people on it, or forgiving without expressing how I felt. I can empathize with why someone does something, but that doesn’t mean I have to play the fear&insecurity game. Surrounding myself with supportive individuals who are more compatible with what I want is a greater act of love, both self-love and a more universal kind.

Who could you use as a RSL role model?
Aphrodite of course! She’s a goddess of love and beauty and freely shared her blessings when and with whom she saw fit. Myth speaks that every year, Aphrodite returned to a sacred space to bathe, renewing her independence and autonomy. She tells us to celebrate the divine in ourselves through sensuality, pleasure, and self-love. She’s the personification of the beauty that is in all of use and the happiness found in celebrating it. Best self-love role model ever. ♥

{You should take part in RSL month because it’s awesome! Go here.}

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How we express our love for each other and the role it plays in our happiness was a huge theme for me last year. When I was younger, I used to think that love was complicated and fragile. I thought that it was something rare and strange that existed between two people that were then devoted to each other. Not surprisingly, I was often a lonely child.

As I’ve gotten older, I’m finding love to be very simple. Love is what connects us to those around us. Love flowing through us rejuvenates our spark, giving us vitality and passion. We love spontaneously, without reason, and with surprising strength. We love people, ideas, animals, objects, tangible and intangible things. It’s natural for us to love. Our hearts were made for it.

We’ve chosen to teach each other that love must flow through certain channels (friends, family, lovers, etc) to be valued and celebrated, but I’m learning this complicates and confuses my feelings. Instead of focusing on expressing what I feel naturally, I worry and begin to concentrate on expressing my affection through ideas of what is and isn’t acceptable based on what class of relationship I’ve put someone in. Love doesn’t flow as easily and I start to feel a lack of it in my life. I block the love that is being given to me and my spark doesn’t burn as brightly.

This year, I’ve let myself love much more. I’ve explored different types of emotional and physical relationships, deepened existing connections, let more people into my life and shared more about my inner self. I’ve been more assertive socially, more forward about what I wanted, and when in doubt, I did what my heart told me to do. I indulged my curiosity and instinct to explore. I learned to first speak my mind in difficult conversations and later to initiate them if I felt confused or that it was necessary. In return, I’ve found more joy, more connection, and more self-confidence. I’ve felt both happiness and sadness, clarity and confusion. I’m a lot closer to many people in my life and farther away from others who I wasn’t compatible with.

Because I was often pushing myself to express what I felt, while being afraid to do so, sometimes I felt erratic and foolish. I felt a little like a child who was learning to speak. The act of loving felt natural, but holding it back also felt natural, maybe because holding back was something I’d practiced so often.

When I express love for different people, what I’m feeling is a mixture of affection, affinity, intimacy, desire and other things I don’t know the name of. How I feel about each person is unique and the way I want to express it is fluid. Sometimes it can be material, like the desire to give gifts or to pamper (making food and feeding people is becoming one of my favorite ways to express love). Sometimes the expression of love is physical. We associate physical intimacy with sex and romantic intentions, when it’s just another way we express ourselves with each other. I’ve found the more I let myself express love organically, the more physically affectionate with my friends I’ve become. I hug more, hold hands more, kiss more and cuddle much more. This type of affection used to be reserved for romantic relationships but the friends I feel comfortable with physically are often also the friends that I feel emotionally close to or strongly about.

How we love is shaped by our personality, past experiences and the choices we’ve made. When we interact with someone, it can feel complicated because we’re often struggling with ghosts of jealousy,insecurity, paranoia, anger, and other demons. Even if we’re able to love with an open, care-free heart, we often use the same words for different things and forget that our desires and styles of loving are unique.

Communication has been the most useful and hardest skill to build in my relationships. It can be hard to talk about intentions and where each person stands in a relationship. It can be hard to talk about something someone has done that has hurt or upset us. Sometimes we just don’t know what we want or feel vulnerable talking about things that hurt us. But it’s necessary to build the skills of expressing to others what we want, what we’re feeling, and our intentions and boundaries. We learn how to do it by opening up and trying. The more we practice, the better we get. This is an integral part of showing love for our self and for others. It can build stronger relationships or show us the ones that we have to let go of.

I’m learning that the relationships we have strongly shape our view of the world. If I spend time with those I have honest and loving relationships with, I feel that the world is a safe, loving place. If I put energy into relationships that are full of insecurity and confusion, I end up feeling insecure and confused. Our relationships are reflections of ourselves, and where we put our focus is what we’re going to create. Looking forward to this coming year, I want to focus on being around those that value the things that I value (honesty, courage, and abundance in love). I want to share my time with those that bring joy and wisdom into my life by inviting out the best in me and asking the best of themselves.

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One night, I sat alone in my apartment with a heavy heart, surrounded by piles of books about courtesans, priestesses, and goddesses. For months the universe had been sending me messages about the need to explore the mystery and magic found in the realms of beauty and pleasure. I was being drawn again and again back to images and attributes of the goddess Aphrodite, seeing her symbols everywhere, drawing the Empress card repeatedly from my tarot decks. I knew the path I was being pointed towards was both a spiritual and physical journey, and while I wasn’t ready to work as a prostitute, I knew it was something I wanted to do and that it would mean more to me than simply being paid for sex. I needed to learn about the sacredness in beauty and pleasure.

I felt frustrated and confused. I was being called to serve but what did I have to offer? The aspects of life ruled by Venus (beauty, happiness, pleasure, success, luxury, delight) were my weaknesses, not my strengths… I didn’t feel beautiful, or happy, or charming. I was intellectual, good with stories and symbols. The physical world was tough for me. I struggled with feeling closed off and disassociated from my life and I had a hard time giving or receiving love. Yet, I felt desire to be all those things Aphrodite and Venus represented. I felt hungry for it – to feel loved, to feel beautiful, to be sensual and experience life as pleasure, instead of pain.

Tearfully, I gave up trying to find the answer in my texts and finally started talking out-loud to the goddess of love and beauty. I lit a small stick of incense that smelled like roses and closed my eyes.

“I don’t know what I have to offer or how I can serve you, but show me, ask of me and I’ll try my best.”

It wasn’t the most eloquent prayer I’d ever spoken to the divine, but it was a genuine offering of my heart. I dedicated myself to her service.

I’ve changed a lot since that night. My world now revolves around that decision to serve love and beauty, to cultivate and spread it. I kept my promise by trying to find out what the real the meaning of beauty was. I learned that beauty was the quality of something that gave pleasure, which has helped me release limiting beliefs about what is beautiful. I cultivate a sensual environment for myself through colour, texture, and music. I garden and work with plants. I dance every day and hula hoop as ways to enjoy my body and play. I’ve worked hard to heal my relationship with food, by cooking for myself and my roommates, trying different diets and being involved in community groups like The Good Food Club. I express the love I feel for those around me and let myself feel loved in return. I try to make decisions from a place of love instead of fear. When it crosses my mind, I take a moments during my day to simply experience a sense of gratitude.

That promise I made opened my heart and mind to transforming my life into one full of love, pleasure, and beauty. It helped me shift my focus and energy from my perceived lack and build new strengths. All it took was desire and effort.

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The other week, at the “Love and Other Delusions” show, I met a woman from out west. I noticed her walk in and introduced myself when I saw her talking with a friend of mine after the show. She invited Roommate X and I for drinks with her, one of the performers and the performer’s friend. Roommate X bowed out and I went alone. I was so nervous I drank half my drink before finding them. In between conversations about the performer’s career, our various jobs, astrology, and hockey – our knees knocked. I took a big sip of what was left of my drink. She asked to kiss me. Then she asked me home. ♥

And later on, she asked me to go camping in the MOUNTAINS. I just about died. She was driving back home in a few days and wanted company. I had never seen the mountains before, except for afar at the airport in Trinidad. We spent about four days in total together, one in Winnipeg talking, taking her dog to the park, listening to Indian chanting and Tracy Chapman – who is a great artist, and more talking, three driving and camping. I learned how to put up a tent, that I’m destined to find older Taurean dames deliciously dangereux, and that generosity of love and spirit is a beautiful thing in a human being. She was so lovely.

I ended up spending a day and a half in Banff by myself, which was pretty fun. I stayed in a hostel for the first time. My roommate worked for as a juvenile corrections officer in an other country, which was funny since my first court date was swiftly approaching. I spent a gorgeous afternoon in a beautiful garden near the edge of town, reading a book she had given me. It was called “The Fifth Sacred Thing” and it was written by Starhawk. I’ve never read any of Starhawk’s writing before, but I loved this book. I read it a second time on the 22-hour bus ride back to Winnipeg.

It’s about San Francisco, known as the City or the North, in the year 2048 where it has become a place where no one hungers, no one thirsts, no one lacks a home or companionship, and everyone acknowledges the four sacred things: fire, water, earth, and air – no matter their religion. Madrone is a healer in the City and ends up taking a journey to the South, down to Angel City where access to food and water is dependant on obeying the Four Purities, women can no longer work, and speaking a language other than english is considered deadly. Bird, a musician who grew up in the North, one day wakes up in a southern jail after been missing for ten years. He escapes and makes his way home to the city where water flows through the streets and tries to heal from his broken hands and heart. On his way, he learns that military armies of the South are preparing to invade the City, sparking the question can a non-violent society stand against the anger and violence of a culture that seeks to dominate? What is stronger… violence or the fifth sacred thing – spirit.

Through the book, Starhawk shows a utopian vision of how we can create an abundant future… and the likely alternative. The book speaks to everything I worry about and question when I look at the world and my own choices. Which direction are we heading: the enslavement of all or the freedom of all? The lack or the abundance? What kind of choices are we making?

This trip was so fulfilling in so many ways. It was the perfect way to close my summer. I’ve felt more active every day, more able to give, more able to show love, stronger. We’re entering into the harvest and I feel that season of transition coming, shaking things up.

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Love And Other Delusions by Tamara Lynn Robert

A little over week ago, I went to a great show at Ragpickers. It was called Love and Other Delusions, put on by a friend of a friend, for a new initiative in Winnipeg to support the health and safety of sex workers. It was fabulous. Poetry, burlesque, humour, adorable outfits, great prizes, charming audience.

It’s a blessing to be in a room full of friends and their friends, watching an amazing show that is fundraising for a cause that is deeply important to me. I felt love fluttering in my chest, like a little white moth preparing to land. I imagined it filling my cupped hands and flying free in a flurry of dusty white wings. Every part of me hummed with an energy that grew with every smiling face, every hug, every kind word from each person that was a reminder of the beauty in my world.

I swear, I feel more thankful every day.

A few months ago, my world came crashing down, when four sex workers, including myself, and two allies were arrested in a raid by the Winnipeg Police and charged. One woman’s two children were taken. It was my first experience with the police and a pretty intense lesson about how some people feel about my work. It was so strange to be in that room with people who were so convinced that they were protecting me from myself, unable to engage or speak to them as peer human beings. I felt at such a loss. My life was changed. I couldn’t work, couldn’t even begin to know how to respond.

But as the weeks went by and I felt my energy and life force drain away, I was lifted up by the love that was given so freely by the people I share my life with. When I had to tell my parents, I was comforted by family. When I didn’t know where my path lay anymore, I was inspired by the people around me and their response to what was happening: the strength of it, the passion behind their convictions, the love they poured into me. I was reminded again and again that we were all working towards the same dream – bringing more love, courage, empathy, and light into the world.

It was summed up that night in a pub, with some new friends, glasses raised in a toast -

“This is a perfect, blessed moment.”

We are exactly where we are meant to be. This is the world we made.

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Broken Heart
Originally uploaded by Gabriela Camerotti

I decided this year would be my year to build my courage, while carrying forward my gift of a loving and compassiionate heart. The past months I’ve made challenges for myself and achieved them, building my strength and breaking free of the fear that once ruled my decisions. The biggest challenge so far has been one that I didn’t expect and couldn’t plan for, but has been teaching me some great lessons about myself and my heart.

One of my challenges was to come clean about a lie I’d told when I was sixteen. The last person I had to tell was one of my closest friends, who has been one of the most important people in my life for the past six years. I’ve always cared deeply for her, but something in our relationship changed that day.

We had actually been living quite separate lives for a while and I couldn’t get a hold of her to tell her the truth in person, though I’d left messages and sent an email. She heard it from a mutual acquaintance and called me to talk about it. I went to see her and after clearing the air somehow ended up in her arms in an intense kiss. I still can’t quite recall how it happened.

The next week or two was a roller coaster. Wanting her passionately brought up new challenges related to past relationships. She has been a catalyst for amazing growth for me. She mirrors my own giving heart and was the first person I could begin to open myself to. She has shared both the best and worst of my life.

I wrestled with the shadows of an open and receptive heart and fought the urge to push the whole situation away. After all, I’d just starting taking clients as a companion. Was pursuing a romantic relationship what I wanted? I’d never really considered how having a personal intimate relationship would manifest while being a companion. I had been so focused on what I was creating for myself, I didn’t think of how another person would fit into that. How much of my time and energy would go where?

Having an intimate relationship with her in particular would put us in unknown territory. We’ve grown up together. We’ve been witness to some truly messy growth spurts and energy cycles, many of which we’ve acted out on each other. Our greatest strength has always been that we’ve both made a commitment to love each other as unconditionally as we are able. We both lead very spiritual and independant lives, and have a history of codependant relationships. Codependency happens when instead of nurturing ourselves, we nurture someone else and expect that person to fulfill our needs. Instead of bringing a whole to the relationship, codependency is about halves. We energetically polarise and instead of completing the cycle of giving and receiving ourselves, we give and expect someone else to complete the exchange by fiving. Neither of us has chosen that in a long time, but I’ve been working with old ghosts of fears and releasing them, so that energy was very present.

I also worried about how a relationship between us would develop. We have been children together, each other’s mothers, friends, sisters. I had my first spiritual companionship and sexual healing experience with her. But my love for her never felt passionate until that day. I felt like something had aligned in me.

Overwhelmed by conflicting thoughts and desires, I sought refuge at a friend’s place to vent my fears and thoughts. I ended up forgetting a very special necklace there that Sarah at Glamourkin had custome made for me last fall to celebrate how much healing gardening had brought into my life.

After letting myself sit with all the things I was afraid of, I decided that I wanted to try. After all, it was my year to build my courage and not let fear stop me. The universe had chosen a challenge for me that went deeper than I could have imagined, but I wanted to meet it. I talked to her and asked that she think about what she wanted. I tried to act with grace, openness, and courage and was so proud of how I approached. I felt incredible.

And then, she turned me down.

I was heartbroken. It had seemed so perfect and so congruent with the growth I was experiencing. It had seemed like it took so much for me to more forward and open myself. But more importantly, I loved her deeply and wanted to see what would happen if we explored this new dimension to our relationship.

All of her reasons had been the same things that I myself had been struggling with and I had to respect that we had come to different conclusions. I made a commitment to love her unconditionally and it was that I chose to renew. I turned my attention towards processing the experience and working with the parts of me that it had unearhted.

It was difficult. The next few times I saw her, I tried to process what had happened and my attraction. I felt that she was attracted to me too, but honoured her decision.

A week later, I made plans to visit the same friends who I’d stayed with before. They returned my necklace and I realised that the new moon was approaching. I was mystified to learn the whole experience had occured within the cycle of one moon. I renewed my desire to let go of what didn’t serve me and to meet the challenges unfolding with strength. I sang to myself on the walk home. I mentally thanked her for everything she’d given me over the years, everything we’d shared, and asked for a more appropriate romantic interest.

She visited unexpectedly the next day. I learned that she had stopped by the night before, while I’d been out, and had spent the evening very similarily to mine, releasing her attachments and inviting clarity into some situations she was going through. She told me she’d been mistaken, that she wanted to try. We spent a lovely day together and kissed in the snow, under a tree.

I didn’t feel anything. For about a day and a half, I felt numb and sad. Wasn’t I supposed to feel happy? Even more confused, I realised I needed some counsel. I turned to another friend of mine, whom I’d know even longer than the one I was attracted to. She suggested that I was in shock and the change in our relationship, coupled with rejection and then the sudden change of heart had all happened too quick for me to process. I had to agree. I went back and forth, first shaken by her rejection and then, finally we both agreed to honour what the other was feeling in each moment and hold each other to nothing but that we explore what was going on with compassion and trust.

I wish I could tell you I’ve figured it out. I hesitated to share this story, because of the deeply personal nature and because I don’t know the ending yet. But sharing the journey as it happens, with all the ups and downs and confusion is part of opening myself to others and part of the reason I decided to start this website. I’ve learned from this situation that I can invite and plan, but the really tough lessons are the ones that come from opening myself to the mysteries of the universe.

So unexpected or no, I’m going to try to meet them with as much grace and courage as I can.

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Thank you, stars
Originally uploaded by ::Miguel Vila::

When we say something is beautiful, what we’re really saying is that we find it pleasing. We feel distaste for things that don’t please us, that we have no affinity with. We pull towards us what we feel a connection to. This deep attraction feels good, it pleases us, so we are attracted to beautiful things. We desire.

While many of us share common ideas of beauty, we also are wildly different in what we feel desire for. We are even wildly different from one moment to the next within ourselves. We are creatures in flux, change, motion. Our perception of beauty is tied to something deep in us. We are creatures of both sensuality and spirituality, we love harmony as much as we love chaos, so we are drawn to things that are both like us and different. We seek both ourselves and strangeness in what we are drawn to.

The moment of attraction is like a sparkling warmth that fills me from the inside out, sweet and sharp electricity across my skin. It can come with a person, a really good piece of art work, a delicious meal, a new idea that’s just what I’ve been waiting for. It can be a cold shiver down my spine, with just enough bite, dazzling and breathtaking. Desire is elemental, essential to our being. It’s what drives me to create, to explore, to dance. It’s the drive to express, to give of myself, to take into myself. Without desire, we’d probably fade into entropy, slowing down until we stagnate or fade. We’re like the stars, needing just the right mix to keep sparking, keeping igniting, renewing ourselves, burning brightly until it’s time for us to go out. Until then what we truly desire is to burn ourselves perfectly with everything we’ve got. We want to give our gifts away, to hold nothing back. We want to shine.

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