Pure Divine Love

Pure Divine Love

What does pure divine love do?

It keeps you from the mud

frees you from living behind tormentors

lifts your heart on a rising,

making your soul hunger to reach

the roof of creation.

It offers what the whole world wants:

real knowledge and power. 

It offers what the wise crave: 

the priceless treasure of freedom. 

It will allow you to befriend Life 

and Light,

reveal the excitement of the present 

offer clarity and beauty

and finally all the heart can do 

is burst open and greet love back. 

       Gibran wrote on September 20, 1920: "The Prophet will come out early in October. It is a good month for books. I always feel that October is the beginning of something." Three years ago, today, October marked the beginning of my relationship with the guy I love and my best friend. We do not have a clear starting point (that's a long story), but we have a point at which we said, hey let's do something we're unlikely to do with anyone else. Ever. I had come home from college that weekend, being a bit disappointed that I had missed NYU's Naked Street run, because com'on, how many times do you have the opportunity to run a race naked?! Anyway, he told me his dad owned a Christmas tree farm and I could feel free to run naked through that instead. It was definitely a weird offer, but since I was very intent on having this experience (and because I LOVE Christmas...and anything to do with it) I said yes. So we ran naked through a Christmas tree farm with a German shepherd chasing us, and it was pure freedom and abandonment. The purpose? Literally to have a "once in a lifetime experience" together. And that's why the day serves as our celebration. And you know what? There probably aren't any other couples celebrating quite this way. We call it "our holiday" and named it 48 (the temperature out). We might be the only ones in the world celebrating this way and that makes it crazy cool. And now he describes our relationship as that once in a lifetime experience, so it all makes perfect sense. Mary Haskell (Gibran's love interest for over twenty years) wrote of him  in her journal entry of April 10, 1915: "We rode the bus to the museum. Every moment was joy." Three years later, every moment is joy.

I Have Come Into This World To See

I Have Come Into This World To See

I have come into this world to see:

the sword drop from men's hands
even at the height of their arc of anger

all creatures holding hands 
as we pass through this miraculous existence
we share 

every song the Earth has sung 
since it was conceived in His womb 
and began spinning from His wish 

every song of hill and tree
and woman and child
and stream and rock 
and tool and lyre 
and flute and fire 
and gold and emerald,

every song of every heart.

I have come into this world to see: 
women and men so true to love 
they would rather die before 
speaking an unkind word,

women and men so true to love
their lives are His covenant -
the promise of hope. 

              It's so beautiful that Hafiz would think to define Love as "never speaking an unkind word" and holding on to the "promise of hope". What wondrous echoes we would hear in this world, if those Truths were the "song of every heart".

Turn Around, Matt Maher

My Heart Holds Within It

My heart holds within it a pasture for gazelles and children, a meadow for music, dance, and dreams. 

         Rumi said, "Let yourself become living poetry" and Whitman said, "Let your very flesh become a great poem". But how many do you know who make this their credo, who give their heart to this message? How many people do you pass in the street and on the way to work whose hearts hold pastures, meadows, sunshine, dancing, music, and dreams? And moreover, can you honestly say your own heart holds these things?
         One person who seems to have left that kind of legacy is Walt Disney. "When You Wish Upon a Star" has, over time, become the iconic anthem for the Walt Disney Company. It’s used in the opening logo sequence of all Disney films and during parades and shows at Disney’s theme parks and cruises. It's message? Dreams are for everyone, no matter who you are. Now that's something to keep in your heart!

When You Wish Upon a Star (1940), Pinocchio

Heart Lifted Into the Sky's Oasis

You can invent galaxies if you allow your heart to be lifted into the sky's oasis. 


            What causes the heart to swell, to strive towards some unnamed calling? Or said more romantically by Hafiz, lifted into the sky's oasis, such that you can invent galaxies!

            Another poet, Pablo Neruda, talked about the heart flying in his beautiful poem, "Your Hands":

Your Hands

When your hands leap

towards mine, love,

what do they bring me in flight?

Why did they stop

at my lips, so suddenly,

why do I know them,

as if once before,

I have touched them,

as if, before being,

they travelled

my forehead, my waist?

Their smoothness came

winging through time,

over the sea and the smoke,

over the Spring,

and when you laid

your hands on my chest

I knew those wings

of the gold doves,

I knew that clay,

and that colour of grain.

The years of my life

have been roadways of searching,

a climbing of stairs,

a crossing of reefs.

Trains hurled me onwards

waters recalled me,

on the surface of grapes

it seemed that I touched you.

Wood, of a sudden,

made contact with you,

the almond-tree summoned

your hidden smoothness,

until both your hands

closed on my chest,

and there like two wings

ended their journey.

Tus manos, Pablo Neruda

How Does It Feel To Be a Heart?

How Does It Feel To Be a Heart?

Once a young woman said to me,

“How does it feel to be a man?”

And I replied, “My dear, I am not so sure.”

Then she said, “Well, aren’t you a man?”

And this time I responded, “I view gender

as a beautiful animal that people often take

for a walk on a leash

and might enter into some odd contest

in hopes of winning a strange prize.”

My dear, a better question for Hafiz

would have been, “How does it feel to be a heart?”

For all I know is Love.

I find my heart infinite,

and everywhere.

           I thought this poem was fitting with the recent victory for Gay Marriage in my home state of New Jersey. I’ve always believed that gender is what we make of it and true love is far from categorical. The commitment to love each other is what makes our relationships real. The commitment to make two lives becomes one. The commitment to value the life of another as if it were your own, or at least to try. I enjoyed this post on the Huffington Post by Ann Voskamp, a NYTimes bestselling author. She said: “Romance isn't measured by how viral your proposal goes. Don't ever forget: the real romantics are the ones who let another heart bore a hole deep into theirs.” And it’s wise to remember that such a hole is infinite.