Love is everything.
It is not confined to a definition or a list. It is what gives life meaning. It is not an emotion, even though it feels so sweetly. It is a verb because we need to treasure it, nurture it, care for it, embody it. Love is what makes sense and why everything is happening. It is the answer to all the questions, even those questions we don’t know how to ask yet. It is the immortal face of our beloved after death. Love gives our experience weight and meaning. Love is what matters to us most deeply. Love is why we are living and it is our sole purpose – to remember that we are spiritual beings in human bodies, and re-awaken our deeper wisdom and divine self to connect better to one another. Love is what matters at the end of our life because the only thing we’ll care for then is how much we loved and how we expressed it.
Everything in life is a relationship.
We are capable of connecting to everything when we spend time with it. Even confined to a room, we will build intimacy to that room. We are in a relationship to our environment, to nature, to people, to all objects around us: how we treat them, how we care for them. To build a deeper connection to nature, spirit and life, we don’t have to go out and look for the faeries – all we have to do is just spend some silence in our bedroom. Truly sit still and notice – notice how everything around you is a part of greater consciousness and unites it all together; how every object is imbued with spirit. This is shamanism. This is spirituality. We can do this anywhere, even in a prison cell. This is how we build a connection to everything and everyone – spend time with it, see it truly see it for what it is, and appreciate it even when it doesn’t look like you or share the same language as you. This is how we build respect towards life and everything and everyone in it.
Sacred relationships differ from other relationships in that they happen when we are tied to our spiritual soul truths. There is no judgment, no angst, no hiding, we are truly ourselves and the love is as close to selfless as humanly possible. This means: we see someone as they are, and accept them as they are, not as we want them to be; we give to another what they need in that moment, rather than what we want them to give to us. Such relationships happen in an open, trusting space where we can truly show up as we are and there is soul appreciation and respect; there is honouring and acceptance for the other person no matter where they are in their life. The love is unconditional.
Sacred relationships are soul-deep.
In such soul-deep union, we are inspired we see the divine essence in another person and experience oneness through our union. Sacredness is an inner experience. It’s a knowingness deep within of who we truly are. This sacred process begins when we’ve come to the realization of our true self, our authenticity, and we can thereby begin a relationship build upon honest, intentional communication coupled with deep physical and emotional bonding, while having the capacity to hold space for the other person to be their true self also. These are not to be mistaken with heavy karmic relationships, which are usually characterized by strong emotional entanglements generating perpetual friction and discord in an unconscious ways.
In sacred unions, while the lovers are usually together from past lives, and do share some karma still, it is primarily the positive qualities of the soul that seek to find expression in and through the relationship. In this way, the two souls develop a loving, gentle, blended process of meaningful purification through higher qualities such as forgiveness, kindness, empathy, generosity, faithfulness, trust, devotion, and compassion. There is an unconditional opening. Even with any karma present between the two partners due to their past lives, they are at a level of consciousness and maturity that allows them to healthily and more smoothly go through it and resolve their relationship into peace. As any other relationship, there will be conflicts and disagreements, but the two souls do not lose respect for one another and work through it.
It is important to emphasize that such sacred bonds cannot exist between souls who are not vibrating as their true self, and that it is important to find a partner at a similar level of our soul development. If there is love between two people, if they are not at a similar vibration, the relationship will not be able to stand through time. Humanity’s lack of self-awareness and dependence on the superficial part of self are what have led to the deterioration of intimate relationships and marriages.
Love is the song of alchemy: opposing forces of water and fire perfectly align together. There is an eternal dance, the dance of lovers, ever intertwined, ever together, merging and repulsing and merging again. This is life. This is love.
The alchemical union of fire and water symbolizes integration, the unification of opposites. This is the binding process of love: the melting of contradictions and transforming two into one, to merge and give birth to a new state of being. As people fall in love, a new soul is born, the soul of the relationship, and it needs its time and space for be nurtured as it grows and changes shape.
The lovers represent the two opposites, which yearn for and are immensely attracted to one another. This duality is reflected in every aspect of existence and is existentially experienced in our human relationships. Every attempt to merge with another is an expression of the passionate urge to re-establish the oneness from which we all came from.
A sacred relationship reflects the embodiment of our own sacredness. As we all know: we see through the eyes of who we are. This is why we need to first have self-awareness, self-knowledge and self-acceptance in order to experience such a deep soul bond.
This is what intimacy means also: into-me-see. We can’t experience emotional depth and true intimacy without allowing to be truly seen by another, and without our partner having the ability and capacity to see us and hold us.
Intimacy is based on trust, conscious sensuality, intentional communication, deep listening, vulnerability, receptive eye gazing, deep love, devotion, appreciation and acceptance. It means holding a safe space for another to allow them to be who they truly are. Intimacy demands that we reveal our true selves in the most vulnerable way, accepting that we may get hurt yet still having the courage to unveil.
True lovers meet when one has the courage to unveil their soul and the other has the humility to surrender, unveiling theirs also.
When we allow ourselves to immerse completely in such soul-deep connections and be vulnerable, it will hurt when we separate.
But how can loving be anything other than everything?
When two souls vow to each other and come together, they engage in a mutual dance of deep exploration and knowingness that they are here to appreciate one another in the deepest possible way and through their love they bring into being something precious for the entire world. Such sacred unions extend far beyond what the human eye may see. Their bond creates a blessed aura that inspires everyone else in their presence – because they build love, contain love, emit love.
Sacred relationships are both eros and agape. I hear people sometimes say: “Should you marry for comfort or passion?” In my humble opinion it should be both – why do they need to be separated? Sexual energy is incredibly powerful, but when we don’t have the self-awareness and self-esteem, we cannot handle it properly. This then manifests as jealousy, manipulation, control issues, possessiveness, and sabotage. Sometimes people say “Don’t marry the best sex of your life” but that’s usually a self-limiting belief and a conditioned mindset. You should absolutely marry someone that you feel passionate about – but we should have the discernment of heart knowing whether we are both emotionally mature enough to go through life and all of its challenges together.
In deep love, there is deep desire and deep ecstasy. When a relationship is built upon the sacred qualities mentioned all above, sexuality itself is sacred. This implies: you protect one another’s vulnerabilities and have the personal accountability for your actions and temperaments. In deep love, divisions dissolve and we become one. Yet for this bond to be sustained and last through time, we need to also treasure it and build a fortress around it with trust, compassion, loyalty and faith.
Eros encompasses romantic and sexual love. It refers to “eroticism” which the mystics described as the state of aliveness; the antidote of death. Through eroticism we negate the rational, embrace the curious, and dissolve the boundaries and limitations – and then, we enter the unknowingness where everything expands and has the ability to grow. While some people may mistake eros for lust, eros teaches us to breathe life into the desires of our soul. It does not refer to sex as much as it refers to our vitality and passion for life itself.
And then we have agape. Agape can be defined as charity, though what it really refers to is selflessness. Selflessness means that I see you as you are; that I will kiss you as you need to be kissed right now; that I will care for you and hold you in this moment as you need, and not as I want you to do the same for me. Often times, we give to another what we want to be given in return, rather than paying attention to what they need in that moment. This is selflessness: caring for someone’s best interest.
True love cannot exist without selflessness and without trust. Agape love is born of will and choice. Every day we make a choice on how we will treat one another and on the kind of person we want to be. Agape is build on commitment, faithfulness, and sacrifice. In true love, we think about the needs of the other and let go of our ego. True love says: “I will kiss you and hold not as I always have but as you need to, right now, in this moment, today.” True love knows how to pay attention to our partner and re-learns, re-discovers, re-explores the kissing, the holding and the caring, throughout our many years together.
So how do we build Sacred Relationships?
Let’s look at medicine wheel, also known as the sacred hoop encompassing the four bodies of consciousness.
Like I already mentioned we can’t have sacredness without self-love. Self-love means self-awareness, self-knowledge and self-acceptance. This is needed to have a bond based on authenticity, true intimacy and soul depth.
In the medicine wheel, all directions refer to our various purposes and to our bodies of consciousness – the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. It encompasses the totality of life and whenever one direction is off balance, all others will be off balance. In the same way, when we align one direction, we will automatically align the rest. As human beings, in human bodies, we will never have complete balance – it is impossible because we are here to learn, grow and expand. The point is: to be conscious and aware, and just do our best to balance our parts.
In the medicine wheel, the direction which deals with sacred relationships is the south which is the one of the emotional body; and it also represents the element of water. The south direction is associated with creativity, emotions, feelings, love, intimacy, intuition, passion, desire, sensuality, devotion, surrender, openness, vulnerability, fluidity, the sacral chakra and anything heart-centered.
The direction opposite of it deals with our self-realization and our spiritual body; it is about our authenticity and seeing ourselves as we truly are at a soul level. The north direction is our connection to our higher self, and our connection to God, or higher consciousness. It is a more passive direction; it is about reflection, introspection, and inner contemplation.
The north also has a grounded element to it – because we can’t journey too highly, we need to be anchored in the physical realm, so that we don’t get lost, but rather know how to then apply our spiritual wisdom towards to life and human connections.
Now you can see how our ability to be introspective and self-conscious, is directed related to our sacred relationships – the two sit opposite each other and balance out. We can only meet another as deeply as we’ve met ourselves. The more we explore our inner worlds, the more able we’ll be to perceive and connect to the deeper inner worlds of our lover. And as sacred relationships are between people who share an energetic stream of consciousness, when problems arise, the only way to work through them is to work on yourself also and be completely honest with each other in communication.
We can’t ever experience a sacred relationship without being in our spiritual soul truth, and without self-love, or the balance of understanding our emotional selves.
In these relationships, there is no hiding; we are absolutely ourselves and we accept one another fully and completely. There are no judgments, shaming, blaming, projecting, fighting and stinginess. Of course, sometimes there will be because we are still human – but we will be able to express ourselves emotionally in an open and healthy manner, and then settle the relationship into peace. This is why emotional intelligence is crucial for deep love.
On the other hand, we can’t be too involved in our spiritual lives because too much introspection isolates us from others. We forget that we already are spiritual beings and that we are here on Earth to apply this wisdom towards our interpersonal relationships. The same applies to all of our other direction and bodies: we need to be in harmony with our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual simultaneously, as too much focus on one diminishes the others.
I want to remind us all once again – we will always have some parts of us not in balance; there is no such thing as complete balance as long as we are in human bodies. We go through life as students, always seeking, and always learning and growing. There is always a way to take things one step deeper and one step further. Even when we are walking a path of truth and authenticity, we’ll still experience days of doubt, etcetera. We are constant explorers, students and mystics of life and love.
The point is self-acceptance which refers to the totality of life. The totality of life is the acceptance of our current moment and current state of being. Not yesterday, not tomorrow. This is why you don’t even need to worry about past lives – because if in your moment right now you do something to heal the self, automatically all other lives, past and future, change also. The totality of life is also the awareness that all changes and flows and is interdependent, and that it is okay to be who we are and where we are in life. In this space of peaceful acceptance, and while it may seem passive like surrender, it is precisely in this space where all is born and has the ability to grow and expand, in its needed form. You have all that you need inside of you to build sacred relationships.
A question some of my clients ask is, “What happens if you know that you are not in a sacred relationship and don’t feel fulfilled with your long-term partner?”
My answer to this is that you will find within yourself that space where the answer will appear. Either your partner would need to rise up with you, to respond differently to you, and they’ll make that decision and then effort to try; or you will be given the wisdom to know what you can do next when you seek the answer within you and give yourself the freedom for the clarity to come when it comes. Once you tap into your inner truth, into your intuition, and your authenticity, take comfort knowing that you will know how to navigate this situation.
Sometimes in life separation is inevitable but people stay in relationships that no longer serve them because they are afraid. And of course, it is perfectly natural to feel afraid because it is scary to walk away from a life with someone when you’ve invested so much of ourselves emotionally, and it is also hard to walk away especially if you don’t have the financial means to do so nor the support system to hold you during such a big transition. However, this only perpetuates the cycle of feeling unfulfilled while blaming the other person.
Other times in life people find that their partner too longs to have a deeper bond to experience with them, and with life itself, and through an open honest communication you can both find a way to create that – which is beautiful. Be open to either one of these situations. Trust the process. And take refuge in the quiet corner of your heart that you will know what to do, and that it will be for your highest good when you truly tune into yourself.
How do sacred relationships come together?
The first thing you need to do is stay on your right path and follow your calling because these relationships are based upon authenticity and dharma. This is why as a spiritual astrologer in my readings to clients I focus on their higher spiritual purpose, because when we are on our right path whatever is meant to come will come more easily and natural in its time.
As sacred relationships are built upon authenticity, you need to stay true to your heart’s desire, needs and wants, keep focused on what you want and don’t suffice for less than that, build your self-worth and self-values, and don’t contradict those with your actions and behaviours and choices.
For example, if you truly want a partner who is emotionally and deeply connected to you, don’t stay in relationships or friendships which aren’t like that – because all you are then doing is essentially creating an inner conflict between what you say you want and what you are “proving” you want externally. This means practicing discernment and having a healthy sense of self-esteem and confidence. Have a set of values, like a a Northern Star, and hold yourself to them and align to them through your every day choices and decisions.
And when you are in a relationship, ask you yourself: “Am I staying here or doing this because of what would happen if I didn’t?” If the answer is “yes”, that would show you that you are building a partnership perhaps out of fear than out of love. There are always problems in relationships and we work through them together, with both partners willing to do so, but we shouldn’t stay out of fears of aloneness, loneliness, abandonment and doubt.
Soul contracts have their own timing and just show up, even when we are strategically hiding from them – the circumstances will always somehow align so that the two people meet. What we must truly understand is that we are already together on a soul level. We will meet when it is time to meet, and whether we think we are ready or not, it doesn’t matter. When it’s time, it’s time. However, what we do after the meeting is up to us – so this is where the more conscious we are, the deeper we’ll be able to experience it.
Soul contracts happen in their own timing and are usually predetermined before reincarnation based on what we wanted to experience in this life. This often manifests in our physical body as desires. These desires are what guide us forward – it is our soul showing us signs of what is next to come into our life, and with these desires our consciousness prepares our energy for that experience. These desires come from the heart, and they can also be in the shape of “good ideas”, creativity, urges to go somewhere or do something, etc.
What’s meant for you will never pass you by. It belongs to you, it desires you and is looking for you – the same way you are looking for it.
And so, dear reader,
if deep in your heart and soul you desire to experience something, or someone, in this life, then know that you will; because you could not have had that desire in the first place if you weren’t meant to experience it. What you seek is also seeking you. This, I know for sure.
You may also read Destined Love, where I go into detail about our significant relationships in this lifetime, what is their higher spiritual purpose, and how destiny is an interweaving between necessity and freedom.
For more of my writings, browse through my Art of Love.
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Cover art by Claude Monet, The House Among the Roses, La Maison Dans Les Roses.