Sheltering in Place, in Love

Posted on the 11 April 2020 by Berijoy @berijoy

"If you have to speculate if someone loves you and wants to be with you, chances are they don't. It's not that complicated. Love, in most cases, betrays the one feeling it. Don't waste moments waiting and wondering. Don't throw away your time dreaming of someone that doesn't want you. No one is that amazing, certainly not the one who would pass you up."
― Donna Lynn Hope

The quiet of this space is loud. It's good, though.

The peace I am finding during this time of sheltering in place during these tumultuous times of change is healing for me.

There is an almost eerie stillness in the air. The world has gone quiet. The feeling is palpable.

Refuge from the din of noise, the 1-2-3 busyness of contemporary global life, from the everyday-as-usual routine of this thing we call life, has made it possible for me to hear.

And see. And realize...what I've been trying to comprehend for years.

"I am heartbroken, but I have been heartbroken before, and this might be the best for which I can hope."
― Lemony Snicket, The End

I once heard a tarot reader quote her friend, who said, "my picker is broken", meaning she chose poor partners in relationships. I understood immediately the meaning in that throwaway phrase, and the sadness in it at the same time.

For I recognized it in myself.

Throughout my adventures in love, I learned to make one excuse or another for a person's bad behavior. This became my signature tool for extending compassionate understanding, giving the benefit of the doubt, or as a clever way of holding on to one who did not deserve my devotional attention.

My busy mind was always looking for the best reason to hold on, give another chance, consider XYZ, if ABC or JKL weren't quite right. It never occurred to me that I was not self-loving. Never. I concluded only that I was not meant to love, nor, be loved.

It was a way I devised unconsciously of cementing my then lack of self-value. Always only ever seeing the best potential in a being was what I knew to do, but which could only be identified through rose-colored, though well-meaning glasses.

Oh, my! I was wrong. The weight of that understanding stops me.

"It is our wounds that create in us a desire to reach for miracles. The fulfillment of such miracles depends on whether we let our wounds pull us down or lift us up towards our dreams."

― Jocelyn Soriano, Mend My Broken Heart

In this moment, when the world has been commanded to shelter in place, I have carved out the space, have been forced to listen more attentively inside. And the voice that I am hearing is pulling me close.

The voice of my heart is saying, "Shhh." It is saying, "Not true. Not true at all. You just couldn't hear me. You only saw yourself through the limiting eyes of others. You listened to their damaged interpretations. Gave them some kind of authority over your truth. None of it was true."

Revelation. As if understanding for the first time, words that had been rolling around my mind for ages. Revelation. New ears.

So.

"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

This moment has been happening for many years. But it is only in this moment that I see. It is just right now that I understand. Here, in this quiet, I can hear my heart trill.

During this quiet space of habitation, I am fighting for myself, for my life, for my chance to love.

And in this quiet space, I can hear my heart. It chirps like a baby bird full of new life. I am seeing. I am understanding. And, I am knowing. Now for the first time, I am feeling how much more I am worth, and just how little I did not know that. It's like all the practice moments of my past, rose up in this singular, silent one.

Revelation.

In this stillness, this quiet, this reprieve from the noise of each day, the chatter of routine, I see and hear and know more clearly than ever... me. The unfolding of my developing awareness is finding its crescendo in the synchronous alchemy of my heart, mind, and soul.

The Hallelujah chorus sings somewhere in the distance.

My perception is changing. I am ascending. There is a light shining, calling me forward. It was once dim and is now bright. And it beckons to me. Now that I can see it plainly, and hear it clearly, it is my new point of focus.

In the quiet of this moment, there is a new breeze blowing. Like a lighthouse in the dark, I am shining brightly.

And I am seeing new lights shining back at me. Port and starboard bound.

I am taking shelter in the pure light of my heart, radiating back.

© 2020. Egyirba High. All Rights Reserved.

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