Un/know.

Dis/agree.

Pause/Move on.

Breathe in.

Breathe Out.

“We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.”

Richard Rohr

Valentine’s Reflection

“I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.” The Fault in our Stars, by John Green. What is love?

“I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.” *

 

For me this quote wonderfully sums up the experience of gradually deepening into a new realisation – love, maybe. A slow burning knowledge that something new has entered orbit not too far away, then drawing closer and warming in the glow of recognition as something other speaks to the heart of you. And then… that sudden moment or realisation that what was ‘out there’ is now intrinsic, vital, life-giving. Who knows when that moment happened, but on the other side of it everything looks different – the world is cast in new colours at the dawn of a new journey.

 

It’s Valentine’s day this week, and it’s hard to escape the assumption that such descriptions are about love – and specifically only romantic, one-plus-one love. But there is so much more to see when our focus is broadened. I have friends who illuminate within me much that I would not see with only my own perspective, places I go where I feel truly whole. Music, art, poetry – these draw me and transform me, providing encounters which challenge and inspire.

 

I wonder what resonates within you when you think of this recognition, this realisation? Opening to something new can be scary and beautiful all at once, but if you have a nagging feeling that there is something ‘out there’, something or someone other that intrigues and compels, then I encourage you to enter into that flow of knowing and being known. It’s a journey, it’s a process – but at some point you may just realise that what was external is now a spark within that will not go out. Something deeper, something precious – something that makes all things new.

 

Hannah Skinner

 

*The Fault in our Stars, by John Green.

 

 

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