Hey,
hope you’re well and feeling loving and loved.
But what does that even mean?
This week I felt the call to share something about love.
Hope it resonates with you,
Andrea
PS: two weeks ago I had a bike accident and I’m just recovering from it. The book progress got delayed a bit and that’s also why you haven’t received anything here. I’m slowly coming back to normal now. Thank you for sending healing vibes.
Love can look like many different things and be of different types: intimate, motherly, tough, platonic, unconditional, reciprocal or not... Can be towards a human, an animal, potentially an object.
It is the subject that people have been trying to express through actions in the largest multitude of forms without ever finding a unique single definition of it.
That’s because of the many forms love has and the uniquely indescribable experience that feeling love creates in each individual trying to express it.
What love surely is not, is separation, or better, exclusion. You see because if you love something or someone you can’t wish for them not to exist. You don’t always have to interact with them but you wish for them to, at least, be.
But then what is it?
Sometimes I forget to notice it, but I see it often.
I saw it last Friday at Voices Unleashed Unplugged1 event.
People were alternating on the open floor, mostly spoken words artists, in different ways sharing something difficult to share.
Someone shared about violence, and the effect it had on them.
Someone shared about the death of a loved one, and how could they overcome that.
Someone shared about a breakup, and how it felt to be alone afterwards.
Someone else shared something in front of other people for the first time.
Very confronting, uncomfortable and maybe scary words to speak and actions to take in order to be sharing in front of strangers.
Something that was scary to experience in the past, creates fear of just being talked about in the present.
Why would they do that? How did they end up in front of an audience doing something they were afraid of?
If they would have to give up on fear, they might have as well stayed sat and just watched the event.
So how does one go against fear? With courage.
And how does one find courage?
How does one choose to stand up, speak and share about something potentially hurtful? How does one talk about their lost loved ones or the loved ones who hurt them instead?
I believe this pull, this sensation we have that we can’t deny, that pushes us to do brave actions, this energy or force that helps us move with courage towards fear, I believe that’s love.
Love is the magnetic pull that attracts us to take the actions we need to take and say the words we need to say.
And it is the love for our dear that passed away that helps us grieve. It’s the love for our past lover that helps us let them go. It’s the love for ourselves that lets us forgive those who hurt us. It’s the love for nature and ourselves that lets us care about the environment.
Fear comes from having something to lose.
Love comes from taking it back.
I hope we can remind ourselves and each other to keep listening, to move further and to take back what we’ve lost so we can be able to look into the next thing.
Love,
Andrea.
Unplugged is an open floor event started in Bali by Voices Unleashed in 2020, just after the first short lockdown. Anyone can participate and use the space to share anything in any artistic form, without a microphone, in front of an uncomfortably quiet audience ready to soak it all in. Poets, musicians, dancers, comedians, magicians, painters and other types of artists have participated since then sharing their inspiring creations.
Grazie, ne avevo proprio bisogno 🖤