Many of us say we are looking for love,yet somehow we manage to commit to never finding it.

The problem with most #romantic #relationships is that they are not intimate. They don’t involve a deeper knowing, and thus there is a diminished possibility of true, #transformation sharing. To be truly seen and understood –in all our #innocence, our #glory and our #brokenness – is to be delivered into the #spiritual ethers where both parties  are #healed.

we say we are looking for love, yet, our action seems to show that we are committed to never finding it. Many of us would rather not know the true scars and triumphs of the person who lies in our arms. Perhaps we say we’re looking for love, but are merely looking for #superficial comfort. We are not looking yet for the true romantic adventure, for that entails a readiness to die to who we were, born anew prepared for love and truly worthy of the romantic heights. Real love is comforting, to be sure, but not necessarily at first. To become #romantic artists we have to pierce the armor that hides our hearts, and the piercing isn’t always comfortable. It can take years of tears to melt the hardness that develops in this world, covering our tender, gentler inner selves.  Tears for every devastating loss…tears for every #humiliating failure…tears for every #repeated mistake. Those who endure those tears and even honor them are not failures at love but rather its true initiates. First the pain and then the power. First the heart breaks and then it soars.

Love will push every button, try every faith, challenge every strength, trigger every weakness, mock every value and then leave us there to die. And then we will be ready to emerge into our power at last to become a soul who is strong enough to take love on. We’ll be a romantic #mystic who has achieved the elements: we endured the flames of love, we were baptised in the waters of love, and now we can move like only a mystic can through the skies and the skin of a lover’s heart.

Kahlil Gibran on Love 

When love beckons to you, follow him,

Though his ways are hard and steep.

And when his wings enfold you yield to him,

Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.

And when he speaks to you believe in him,

Though his voice may shatter your dreams

as the north wind lays waste the garden. 

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.

Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,

So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth. 

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.

He threshes you to make you naked.

He sifts you to free you from your husks.

He grinds you to whiteness.

He kneads you until you are pliant;

And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast. 

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart. 

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,

Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,

Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.

Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;

For love is sufficient unto love. 

When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, "I am in the heart of God."

And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. 

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:

To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.

To know the pain of too much tenderness.

To be wounded by your own understanding of love;

And to bleed willingly and joyfully.

To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;

To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;

To return home at eventide with gratitude;

And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.