Tuesday is Valentines Day--a day with multiple layers of meaning in world culture. History shows the focus on Romantic love has roots in pagan rites, festivals and celebrations of a coming Spring. While the official establishment of "Valentine's Day" was 496 A.D, when Pope Gelasius declared February 14 a Catholic feast day in honor of a martyred Saint Valentine. But the ancient story of St. Valentine is surrounded by the jumbled history of other saints who shared the name. This uncertain identity eventually led the Church to remove the day as an official feast day in 1969. By then of course, the holiday had spread beyond religious tradition to become a highly commercial, global celebration, and at least in American culture, expanded to become a day to express love in its many forms--friendship, family, support--although the core tradition is romance.
Beyond the bonds of all of these levels of affection, there is the experience of Divine Love. While modern advertising has cleverly pushed cultural expression of love through special meals, flowers, cards and gifts, underneath all this commercial show, still lays the human heart and the movement toward union and a shared life. Beyond that movement is the joy of life itself, the song of Creation, Divine Love--Cosmic Delight.
To just call that Song "love", in our limited human sense of love, is only a partial awareness. As my teacher, U.G., used to say, "love means two." To love in the human sense requires separation; it actually reinforces separation. With true union, there is no separate being to love, no separate lover. This is the paradox of this human internalized call to love. Zen sums up the way beyond: "Not one, Not two."
Whether you enjoy the festivity of Valentine's Day on Tuesday, or ignore it completely, let your heart stay open. If you feel left out, or resentful, or dismissive, try a little forgiveness. Today, this Sunday, offers a window into a larger field of Love and strangely, you, right now, are at the center.
(Susan Nettleton)
For the poetic expression of that larger field follow the links:
Marie Howe's poem: https://mbird.com/poetry/annunciation-by-marie-howe/
Larry Morris poem: https://hillsidesource.com/the-heart-of-things