Continuing from the Crushes post, here is one about Love.
I listened a while ago to this great Radiolab
episode all about Love and how it works, at least in as much as we even CAN understand it. I also wanted to share this
fantastic video about a love competition that takes brain imaging of people to try to test their various experiences of love. It's super interesting and made me feel really happy and think about the importance of meditation and sending out those good loving vibes, not just to our romantic partners, but to all kinds of folks. It also shows how good this is for the person doing the loving. I feel like I may have posted this video before but it's worth a re-post as it kind of touches on the idea of loving kindness meditation, which I have been trying to get back into since the fall. My aunt gave me a great book a while back called "A
wake in the Wild" and in it one of the meditations is a guided loving kinds meditation. The idea is to think about the plants and animals and progressively the people and send them the following thoughts:
May you be safe.
May you be healthy.
May you be happy.
May you live with ease.
I have been trying to remember to do this.
I was in a Kindergarten class in a month or so ago and I was buoyed by the lesson I learnt there about love. The teacher asked the children "can you tell Alicia about the different kinds of hearts that we have?" The children politely answered "We have a muscle heart and a feeling heart" then they went on to tell me about how in their class they also talked a lot about all the different kinds of love that there are. For example, there was friend love, teacher love, parent love, brother or sister love, love for a pet etc etc etc. I was so impressed. The English language is hard on love, we have just one word and it isn't enough, not nearly enough to capture the spectrum of feelings that could easily fall under this kaleidoscopic umbrella. Yet it's all we have. This didn't deter this magical kindergarten teacher and her students. More power to them.
Soon after I read a post from a friend called "
I Love you NBD. (No Big Deal)". It also made me think about how bound many of us are by what we think love means and the inherent attachments and stress on doing wrong to each other with our feelings. I also recently read a book called
"the ethical slut" which I would highly recommend as it gives a very nuanced and insightful look into open and honest communication which is of value in any and all relationships. It really helped me think about jealousy and possessiveness in ways that have been hugely helpful.
On a separate but related note, in my very limited forays into learning about the Haida language I have noticed that in the SHIP glossary, there are multiple words for different kinds of
k'uuga or love. Baby talk love
guuga, so in love you can't sit still
ling.xaal, and many more that I can't actually spell using this keyboard. Makes me very curious into this language and more importantly the culture behind it. I think we have so much to learn from the Haida and other world views that are not founded so much on resource extraction, efficiencies and industrialism.
