Some while ago I was journaling and the question ‘Am I loving now?’ came through.
Am I loving now? Am I? I am now as I write this and honour the part of me that is creative and expressive. A child part,perhaps,that wants to be seen,to be heard. To be acknowledged. An adult who struggles with being expressive and dancing the delight that for me is writing.
Kind, generous people have encouraged me to write. Spirits have kept gently insisting.
Three, four, maybe five years ago the fierce question Am I Loving Now came to me. And at last I am choosing to answer this question and,boy,does this scare me. Terrifies me as this is a truly life changing question. It’s not one that allows hiding,no shirking the truth.
In the spirit in which this question has been asked of me I commit to writing here at least three times a week.
The question is a Soul question, a life question. For me, for you. One of the many reasons I’ve avoided writing this is because a perfectionist lives inside me that says ‘How can you write this? Who do you think you are? Look at your life,look at you! Who would ever listen to you? Get perfect then come back!’ Well,if I waited for that I’d never turn up and the shame,my shadow would win.
So I’m showing up here. I can feel my belly leaping but it’s time to love myself now by taking a risk,by showing up here. I love writing. Absolutely love it. And yet I also know its a gateway into me and that scares me as its an honest gateway.
So, I’m going to leave this opening to my question for today and leave you a poem. My favourite lovers poem because the lover that David Whyte asks us to meet is myself. Is yourself. And when I choose to meet me I truly am loving me.
The Truelove
There is a faith in loving fiercely
the one who is rightfully yours
especially if you have
waited years and especially
if part of you never believed
you could deserve this
loved and beckoning hand
held out to you this way.
I am thinking of faith now
and the testaments of loneliness
and what we feel we are
worthy of in this world.
Years ago in the Hebrides
I remember an old man
who walked every morning
on the grey stones
to the shore of baying seals
who would press his hat
to his chest in the blustering
salt wind and say his prayer
to the turbulent Jesus
hidden in the water
and I think of the story
of the storm and everyone
waking and seeing
the distant
yet familiar figure
far across the water
calling to them
and how we are all
preparing for that
abrupt waking,
and that calling,
and that moment
we have to say yes,
except it will
not come so grandly
so Biblically
but more subtly
and intimately in the face
of the one you know
you have to love
so that when
we finally step out of the boat
toward them, we find
everything holds
us, and everything confirms
our courage, and if you wanted
to drown you could,
but you don’t
because finally
after all this struggle
and all these years
you don’t want to any more
you’ve simply had enough
of drowning
and you want to live and you
want to love and you will
walk across any territory
and any darkness
however fluid and however
dangerous to take the
one hand you know
belongs in yours.
— David Whyte
from The House of Belonging
©1996 Many Rivers Press
Am I Loving Now 