Manifesting Love - So Many Kinds of Love!

It's Valentine month - February, so why not talk about Love - and while we're at it, Manifest the best feeling in the Universe! Who knows - with enough love to go around - we might just manifest peace! Three essays and a poem on love...

Is it REAL Love?
Only time will tell
By Vesta Copestakes
It’s Valentine time, so we look for trinkets that become little reminders of our love, take our sweeties out to dinner, etc. Why? Because it feels good and that’s what love is all about. As a friend once said to me – you like to be in love because of the way it takes you feel. Yeah – well – me and Paul McCartney. As my guy Alan says, “Vesta – you’re in love with love!” Too true!

So what is love anyway? Well, I’ve certainly had my roller coaster rides and formed opinions through the years. A bunch of years ago I came up with what I call …

“The Rule of Two and 1/2 years.”
Early love is all illusions and it’s a wonderful time to just immerse yourself in the thrill of it all. As we age and experience broken hearts, over and over, we tend to get skittish about this phase. We’re reluctant to surrender to it – distrustful, etc. We have reasons! BUT, if we hold back, we’re missing out on an opportunity that happens ONLY when love is fresh and new. How about just surrender to it. Hold off on sex as long as you can stand it and feel the intense electricity of desire that lasts only until you indulge! Once over that line – it all changes rapidly.

The first stage lasts about six months and everyone is on good behavior. They feel so good you can’t blame anyone for acting nice, nice all the time. Lovers are happy and behave well.

Basically, at this stage, you don’t have a clue who you are falling in love with – and vice versus.
By the time a year has passed you learned a lot. Not the whole story, but enough to decide if you want to keep walking down this path hand-in-hand. If the answer is yes, then carry on, but know that you still don’t have the whole story. This is NOT the time to get married! You might want to test-drive the deal by living together, but it will put guaranteed pressure on the situation, so hold off if you can. Living together is mighty different from spending the night at each other’s homes. Shared responsibilities can take their toll on love.

Over the next year or so you will have conflicts. How you resolve those conflicts will tell you everything you need to know about the strength of your love, your compatibility and your mutual respect. People who yell nasty things in the heat of anger don’t have what it takes. Those nasty remarks leave scars on hearts. The words rattle around in a lover’s head and ring true enough that they will form self-doubt and all kinds of emotions that don’t blend well with love. They are confidence killers as well as relationship killers. Good love is all about respect.

By the time 2 ½ years rolls around people are very real. You just can’t maintain illusions beyond this. The next year makes or breaks the tie that binds. I’ve certainly had the inklings that I should leave at 2 ½ years, but I’m persistent and dragged it on another year only to come to the same conclusion – this doesn’t work. Another year didn’t make it better, it only diminished the love until that love was gone. Once the love is lost, there’s nothing holding strings to your heart. It’s time to leave and let each partner seek someone more compatible. The important thing to do at this point is to part with respect. Fights and insults, cheating, all that nasty stuff is not necessary to say goodbye. Just agree to disagree and move on.

But – if the love is growing, the compatibility increasing, the mutual respect feeding each other, then this is where what I call “Deep Heat” takes over. If you thought new love was exciting, wait until you experience real love. I know some couples who have been together decades and they talk about the thrill of seeing their lover walk through the door. That tingle in your heart? It runs clear through your body. The love literally settles into a physically deeper space in your heart.

Sexual desire is a full body experience that is even satisfied by cuddling around each other and falling asleep. It’s intimacy in a safe environment and there is nothing more thrilling than feeling emotionally, mentally and physically safe with someone you love, and most important, loves you in return. “Safe Haven” is what Alan and I call it. Wow! THIS is worth waiting for, striving for and seeking. Ask any couple who has fared well over time will tell you there’s nothing like long-term, enduring love.

I wish every lover a wonderful month of love, and if you can pull it off, decades until death do you part. And quite honestly, it never leaves your heart. Ask anyone who lost a lover to death. It doesn’t end there!


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The Courage to Encourgage Love
By Bethany Argisle

The legend of the many Saints named Valentine, are actually believed to be Saint Galantine, the gallant one, and when the French peasants pronounced it, it became Valentine. It began the mission of the Saint to marry young lovers and soldiers when it was outlawed by the Roman Emperor Claudes II Gothicus who believed soldiers weren’t focused on war if focused on love (let’s just hope that’s true!)...

Of course, we do not send Valentine wishes with a picture of the beheading of
Galantine/Valentine and that is exactly the price he paid for continuing to support the bonds of those who wished to unite in their love plight - so it seems to take great courage to really believe that Love (of course is a four-letter word) overcomes that which aims to destroy not only our ability to love, but us as well.

In thinking/feeling this yearly celebration, there are important issues for us, not just the birds who are thought to choose their nesting mates on this very date. How do we let war happen? I have a theory and it includes the vast difference between the two:

COMPROMISE vs. COOPERATION
One night on top of an empty pizza box (from Andornos, of course - I just love their west coast pizza)...I drew a circle and drew a line down the center-one one side, the word - Compromise - I hear it so often, “you just have to compromise” - so let’s look up the etamology of the word itself and see if it applies to our new now -

Compromise which each side gives us some demands and makes some concessions
And adjustment of opposing principles - to weaken or give up one’s principles for the sake of expediency.

Cooperation indicates the act of joint effort - to act or work together for a common purpose, to combine for mutual benefit for all concerned.

In order to exercise that four letter word LOVE and WORK, that the real work is to notice that on this very day that whenever we hear the words “kill two birds with one stone” that we can now chose a new way of being that applies to now and to replace kill two birds with one stone with “light two candles with one flame” is more appropriate to conserve and not compromise the birds and therefore Saint Valentine sacrifice for Love...which in the end is more of a joy than a job...

When we feel the passion and fulfillment of love, it takes many forms, the personal romantic lover, the love that exists all around us, even if we are alone, yet not lonely as we take in this vast offering of the One who has this garden we are all cooperating with by breathing in and out during...

I believe in my true heart that love is fuel and that touch is ignition and the flame of the heart must be tended with respect and intention to make the most out of now...I know there are many who believe this way - that we are blessed and isn’t it amazing that the word bless has the word less in it...During these times of challenge, we may be finally focusing on that which is the simple, the free, that which is the honey of the bee, also ruled by Saint Valentine, the bees...and what is sweeter and a greater promise of love than it’s nectar...

“When the Power of Love Overcomes the Love of Power, the World Will Know Peace” - Jimi Hendrix


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Wrathful Devotion
by Jennifer Welwood

You gave me a heart that ignites
In the passionate knowing of you,
And having burned in that heat
Is not drawn to lesser fires.

You gave me a mind that expands
To encounter your vastness,
And finds in those fathomless depths
Its own luminous nature.

You gave me a soul that won’t rest
With any barrier to you,
Be it heavy and dense
Or gossamer as a veil.

You gave me an old structure
Made up of my history;
It is heavy and dense,
It is gossamer as a veil.

I meet it, allow it, explore it
And still it grinds on,
A machine that relentlessly churns out
Old patterns and tendencies.

I embrace it, dissolve it, release it --
Still it keeps reincarnating,
Rising up from some ancient template
Held deep in my bones.

I don’t begrudge you your sense of humor,
Beloved trickster,
But I do wonder, now and then,
What you have in mind.

Did you make me to realize a freedom
I can’t fully embody?
Do my heart and soul burn for a truth
That I can’t fully live?

I commune with you in the heavens --
It’s not hard to find you there;
But I need you down here,
In the marrow of my bones.

You can’t turn away now -- stay here;
I will have this out with you.
You started something with me,
And now I want it finished.
Yes -- I will wrestle with you on this one,
Beloved torturer;
I will wrestle you all the way down
To the very ground

And not rest till I stand
With the soles of my feet upon you,
And not rest till I feel you infuse
My every cell.


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The ART of LOVE
By Sharon Ann Wikoff

This is the month of LOVE. Valentine’s Day offers a wonderful opportunity to stop and look more closely at this ageless subject. Sometimes, the re-examining of a word or topic can pierce the armor we may have placed around the subject and a new way of looking at the topic results. Or sometimes, when we encounter another and are shown great love and consideration, we stop and reshape our way of living life. With such newness, a rich vitality can be rekindled. And what can be more exciting than living life with vitality!

Webster’s Dictionary gave the following definition about LOVE.
“A feeling of warm personal attachment or deep affection.”

Affection used in the definition of love can be described as kindness, caring, fondness and goodwill.

I think it’s safe to say that all of us want our children and/or the children we know and love to be loving…to treat others with kindness, with care, with fondness and goodwill.
Can we have an active part in assuring that our children do grow up as LOVING individuals?

I believe that you… that all of us have a new opportunity everyday, in every moment and in every way to model either LOVE or non-LOVE! When you are involved with children, you have a wonderful opportunity to demonstrate LOVE.

Every Day in Every Moment
You
Model
LOVE or non-LOVE!

Children are watching you ALL the time! Even when they do not appear to be. The old saying is that “teachers have eyes in the back of their head”. Well, children have extraordinary perception in their eyes and ears!

Everything you say and do is very much heard. And I’ve even had children pick up on the things I think! So, what amazing opportunities to model LOVE!

Many years ago I was working in a Child Developmental Day Care Center. It was near the end of the day and we only had 4 children remaining. My co-teacher and I were observing the children and talking as they worked on an art project and talking amongst themselves. All of a sudden one of the 4-year-old girls looked up at us and said, “Why do you talk so nicely to each other?” Yes, every moment of every day you are being watched!

Whether you are talking to your co-teacher, your partner, a friend or your child, all conversations and interactions are an opportunity to spread the LOVE!

7 Ways of Modeling LOVE

• Use respectful language & a gentle tone in conversations.
• Invite cooperation, do not demand obedience.
• Create an environment of peacefulness and harmlessness in your home or classroom.
• Offer choices allowing for children’s individual preferences.
• Allow children to see peaceful disagreements occur and peaceful solutions reached.
• Consider your child’s development level when making requests.
• Create an age-appropriate home environment, allowing for your child/rens’ play and work.

In most situations, the way a child is treated is the way a child will respond. And even when a child is being inappropriate, an adults response to him/her, needs to be polite and harmless. Anger should not breed anger!

Pam Leo suggests if you question whether or not your language is appropriate, ask yourself: “Would I speak in this manner to my best friend?” If not, then perhaps you want to re-think your languaging.

You never know when your happy smile, or your kind words or your caring actions are just the LOVE that is deeply needed by an individual in that moment! Your LOVE is like the pebble being dropped into the pond, creating ripple after ripple. Your LOVE likewise spreads person to person to person to person!

Sharon Ann Wikoff holds two California teaching credentials and is an EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) Practitioner. Sharon hosts the radio program, The VOICE of CHANGE. This month she hosts the teleclass: Creating Play Environments for Children. Details can be found on her website: www.AuthenticWays.com