Here we are in the month of mid winter at a time that is meant to warm the heart. Valentines Day is the focus of February along with the hint that winter is running its course and spring will be approaching shortly. It is a time of hope and the internal review of love in our lives.

I hold this question in my heart and place it lovingly in yours to be answered. What does it feel like to love and to be loved? I know that I have been very blessed in my life to have received love and have found it inside myself to return love to others. I have known the bonding selfless love from my mother and I have felt it as I shared that love with my own children and grandchildren. I was so blessed to have been in a loving marriage for over 30 years. I felt my heart open to more love as he slipped from my arms into the arms of eternal love. And through all of these precious times I have been so grateful for the opportunities to stand in the light of love.

The most precious love is the love that I feel in my heart, in my soul, in every molecule of my being of the miraculous Spirit of the Creator of all. Love is not something we can understand, instead we must experience it. It is the light that shines in the darkness, the tears of gratitude that reach beyond forgiveness, the eyes that rest upon the miracles of this earth, the pureness of a child as they wrap their arms around you and the quiet peace when a prayer moves from your heart into the heavens.

Valentine’s Day reminds us about relationships and how we are affected by the feelings we have for each other. It is an exchange of emotion and it is truly about the exchange more than the emotion. How we choose to give and how we choose to receive may be the most important part of a relationship. We are so deeply aware of the feelings we experience when someone has been kind and loving and also when they may have been thoughtless and irritated. We are affected by many things outside of ourselves and it is the relative association of those experiences that reflect our truth within us.

It is within the relationship of interactive respect and self-reflection that we are receiving the most benefit from any relationship. It is called the mirror reflection. What we see in someone else is what we need to see in ourselves. If you keep drawing to you relationships that are unkind, the question is how are you unkind to yourself. If you are in a relationship with someone with an addictive problem, ask yourself what you are addicted to. Are you addicted to the feeling of rescuing someone from their addictions? Who has the real addiction or are you both connected through the relative association of addictive behavior. What is your addiction in this relationship and what is holding you there? These are the gifts that you are constantly receiving within this connection to another. Ask yourself these questions and see how much you have been aware that the one you truly need to rescue is yourself. Once you have done that, you will no longer have a need for that addictive relationship in your life.

The one thing that is clear is that we all require relationships that reflect a love that we can hold in our own hearts for ourselves. When it moves from the awareness of loving someone for whom they are to the realization that you like who you are when you are with that person, then that is a true relationship of love. All life connections are for the purpose of knowing and loving ourselves more through the awareness of what is being reflected back to us by others.

We are in direct relationship with our children, parents, siblings, spouses, co-workers and our sweet, dear pets. I am particularly in tune with the birds, squirrels, trees and the unexpected presence of a raccoon, a swan upon the lake, flocks of geese, a wild turkey, deer and whatever other surprises my soul wants me to experience.

The heart is the symbol of the beat of our life energy within the relative association with the universe. It reminds us that we are not doing this alone and that it is through love of ourselves that enables us to love the world.

I pray that you will allow love to be your vision, your words, your comfort, your hope and the sound you hear within your heart. May you allow this to be your truth and may this love blanket all your relationships.

Many blessings, love and light,

Joyce