We began the new year with a beautiful bright full moon, called wolf moon, in a part of the sky connected to love, humanity, spiritual wisdom and compassion. Jupiter was close to our maiden Moon in the sky, embraced by the arm of the celestial immortal twin or eternal beloved and with the brightest fixed star Sirius, the shining one, which speaks of love, spiritual wisdom and expansion and union; while the Sun conjunct with lovers Venus and Mars were all together along the crown and the wings of the celestial archer – which all looks like a big bright star, and in a part of the sky which deals with water, spiritual expansion and beauty, authenticity and purity, and unshakeable faith. There’s a bridge revealed by this lunar light – a bridge, upon which is you choose to walk, with integrity and truth, it’d lead you to deeper love.
A touch, an embrace, a sense of being understood or seen, is what at this time will bring you higher to the celestial crown and close to the shores of higher wisdom. Whether this touch is physical, emotional or spiritual, or through higher wisdom and learning, it marks something important yet to unfold. And it is a reminder also – when we know how to hold and touch, in a love way, gentle way, intentional way, this raises us, lifts us up, holds us. It nourishes a sense of home and belonging inside of us, which is no longer just felt only on the inside, it is reflected by someone’s eyes, words or hands, so that it reminds us love chooses you, because you chose it. In these skies are also our roots, the soil. There is folklore here, history, heritage, wolves. There are ancient voices here, from a time before time beyond time, knots tied from long ago, vows made of fires and waters. There are no chance meetings here, and the soul knows when we meet someone we’ve known more than one life should allow. All we’ve poured into the rivers through the fabrics of time, with our deeds and actions, are what the rivers bring us into.
This special full moon is a beautiful alignment that paves our way like a river towards togetherness, and what creates togetherness are love and compassion, and what makes that move through us and be moved by us is spiritual wisdom. In this way, what paved our way, or rather invited us into this new year and it’s up to us to say yes to it, is a deepening of love and relationships; a deepening not necessarily through the big romantic gestures kind of love, but through the small acts with great love kind of love.
Love isn’t a thing that sweeps us away like an ocean always. It may feel this way, but it actually gathers us into the body of the present moment so deeply, so wholly, that almost all of our explanations or reasonings fall away. In such a moment, so deep into the present, the ordinary comes alive in the most beautiful ways, and timelessness takes us. The ordinary, in all of its plain and simple, begins to shine, becomes luminous, alive. Everything awakes. Every facet of our world awakes, and you within it.
And we become hands. We become lips that speak, skins that soften, hearts warm. We become the hands of love, lips of love, gestures of love. We become the body of love. We become her heart, her rhythm, her movement, her tongue. Her trust. Her knowing. Her openness and generosity and her promise.
Love invites us to offer ourselves to her. Love asks us to become her hands. Hands holding and being held; hands holding in support, in hugs, in embrace, in giving. Love desires us to become her lips, her tongue – to speak beauty into the world, to speak love, to speak kindness. Love desires us to become her walking, her rhythm – to become kindness and patience of rhythm, to move in grace, to move in harmony.
Love is to have the eyes of love – to be able to hold someone’s tears, sadness, grief with compassion and tenderness; while also being able to hold them in a vision of goodness and joy, health and wellness, so that when they share their dreams and hopes and their most vulnerable parts of themselves, you hold it all with love, not doubt. It’s really important to have people in your life who are able to hold this space for you, and hold this vision for you, and to be mindful whom you share your deepest self with.
True wisdom doesn’t separate, it connects. True faith doesn’t dominate nor control nor separate, it humbles. True spirituality isn’t loud nor glossy, it listens. It is a monk within us with his candle, nurturing his flame, as he is both the flame, the wax and the candle of which light others may nourish theirs.
The only ever genuinely spiritual people that I’ve ever met were the ones with the warm hearts, loving hearts. And none of them were loud. They spoke with intention, they felt deep compassion and felt deeply all emotions, but felt it all with the purity and calmness of pristine waters, because neither emotional imbalance nor coldness of hearts or “detachments” are empathy or spiritual enlightenment. So keep your heart warm, keep it warm, always.
With the wisdom of our wolf moon, let’s begin our new year with the path of love, perhaps with a promise to ourselves to walk it more consciously. This isn’t about the big gesture kind of loves, it is about the deepening of love and relationships through the small acts with great love kind of love.
It’s something our world needs profoundly. A kind word, a smile, a feeling like we are not alone; because often we walk on the street and rarely people give a smile, share eye contact, or give one another compliments. There is also a lot of separation in our world, a lot of difficulties people go through, and we all go through in our own ways, and this can be very burdensome – so how can we offer more beauty and warmth in our world today?
A simple way is to try to make at least one person smile and laugh each day. It could be the person in the store, the cashier, the stranger beside you, and of course your loved ones and family. Perhaps you can open up the door to someone, help an elderly with their bags, or smile at the little child on the street whose big innocent eyes are looking at you.
Invite beauty. Beauty in words, beauty in movement, beauty in gesture, beauty in our perspectives and ideas. Beauty has a spiritual purpose, and I’ve written about this in depth before – but it is essentially an opening of heart, an awe with life and presence, and a softening of our body also. It’s about deepening our relationship to awe, to goodness, to people, to one another, to beauty, to ourselves.
Become a hunter of awe, hunter of beauty. Notice, witness and amplify awe. Let the warm sun touch your skin, let yourself fall into the scent of a rose that still gifts us with sweetness, fall into the weightlessness of a moment, a touch, a melody. Let the world touch your heart, let magic reveal itself to you.
Give a compliment to someone, see something beautiful and inspiring in them, and let people know when they have helped you or inspired you or soothed you in some way. Very rarely people nowadays show appreciate, gratitude or give compliments. Actually, the most beautiful things and people get the least compliments, because most others assume they get that every day or all the time, so “what good is it for me to also state the obvious”. But don’t think that – speak your appreciation, it makes someone’s day and offers them encouragement to continue doing what they are doing.
Get creative yourself! Expressing our creativity is about remaining in our humanity, in our human hearts and minds and hands. We live in a greatly artificial world, so it’s important to nourish your own creative self and don’t take that for granted. Pour your love into everything you do, no matter how small, this is what makes your creations alive. Whether you are building a wooden table, fixing the lights in the house, making tea or cleaning your home, be intentional and soft.
The acts of love aren’t just about making our own little corners of the world better, nor is it about making our own individual lives better – it ripples outward. This is how change is made, and how it is already made. Goodness doesn’t cost anything. Kindness doesn’t cost anything.
Beauty isn’t about shallowness – it is about the essence, the movement, the grace that becomes us and moves us forward, and it radiates through us and it inspires others also. When we amplify awe, we disrupt apathy; when we amplify beauty, we amplify togetherness. Beauty isn’t about aesthetics – it is about inherent geometry of togetherness and interconnection; about how we are in the world, and it of us.
This isn’t about “being nice”, it is about anchoring a vision of the kind of world we desire to live in and build, and contribute towards living in and building. It may sound subtle, or too little – a smile, a loving word, a kindness of movement when we walk on the street – but this is the soft power of love and her hands when she becomes us. It’s about the gentleness and compassion of holding things, even when seemingly opposite.
And of course, gratitude. We may not have everything we wish in our life yet or what we desire to love, but may we love what we already have. And keep the heart warm, keep it warm.
Photography is by me from the Dryanovo Monastery “St. Archangel Michael” in Bulgaria, where I spent a few nights. It is a beautiful monastery surrounded by high cliffs, and I also loved hiking and exploring the mystical forests and secret rivers streams in the surrounding area, as the monastery resides in a river valley in the Bulgarka Natural park. The monastery is a functioning Bulgarian Christian Orthodox Monastery, meaning monks live here, but you are welcome to spend some nights there sleeping, as they have quarters kept for visitors. Dryanovo monastery was founded in the 12th century, during the Second Bulgarian Empire, and is dedicated to Archangel Michael; it was actually twice burnt down and pillaged during the Ottoman rule of Bulgaria, but restored at it present place in 1845. Because even when roofs are burned, the moon shines through still, and the flames of the heart are eternal.
I still remember how I felt while there, retreating to my room, it was all so quiet, so clear, so aware of everything around me; and then briefly on the terrace overlooking the high cliff, how the wind touched my skin and how the sun too retreated itself, and the whole sky and everything and I within it all, became concealed in the privacy of a night. Truly, it brings you deep in your body. Just like love.
The truth is that regardless of whether you are in a romantic relationship or not, you are always in a relationship. Monks too are in a relationship. Everything in life is a relationship. And you are always in a relationship, continuously and always, because love itself unfolds through various speeds and movements, shapes and forms. The sooner we grow out of the teenager mentalities that “love and relationships” have only one way of looking like or defined by, the sooner we’ll hopefully mature, and begin to learn how to really love and what love really is.
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