The Heart Dies a Slow Death

love |ləv|

noun

1 an intense feeling of deep affection : babies fill parents with intense feelings of love | their love for their country.

• a deep romantic or sexual attachment to someone : it was love at first sight | they were both in love with her | we were slowly falling in love.

• ( Love) a personified figure of love, often represented as Cupid.

• a great interest and pleasure in something : his love for football | we share a love of music.

verb [ trans. ]

feel a deep romantic or sexual attachment to (someone) : do you love me?

• like very much; find pleasure in : I'd love a cup of tea, thanks | I just love dancing | [as adj., in combination ] ( -loving) a fun-loving girl.

"Once you see what the heart really needs, it doesn't matter if you're going to live or die, the work is always the same." - Noah Levine

You cannot ask the sun, "please, shine more." You cannot ask the rain, "please, rain less."  There are things we cannot control. Neither the current of love, nor death, is altered by our longing for it to be something other than it is.  The bittersweet yearning of the heart holds a tenderness that is found in the hearts of all who have known love.  Love heals all, love is a core essence of being human.  Can one not agree that death is the same?  Death, the great teacher, is the healer of pain and suffering.  Given the gift of life, we are given a solemn promise that death will follow.

Love begins in the dark roots of the cherry tree and spreads up to the tips of the branches bursting out in the delicate, pink blossoms of the spring.  Love also is the the dying blossom that wilts and drops to the earth, along with the leaves that crinkle and turn brown following their own journey of decay.  This decomposing love feeds the earth and creates fodder for the next cycle of love, of spring, of new blossoms of life.  Death and love are close companions.  They walk side by side at night holding each others hands, and as the sun rises, death slips back into the shadows to wait patiently for love to find it again.  Death is your constant friend that is always with you waiting patiently for its moment to join you and complete your cycle of being.  Death wraps you in its cool, slender fingers, its icy embrace.

If you cannot not bypass these unavoidable realities of existence, how does one live with them?  Apparently, I romanticize both love and death.  Do I do this to all of life?  If so, what implications does it have?  Most recently, I notice my mind stream dropping into my heart.  Events in my life right now are awakening energies that I have not felt in some time regarding matters of love, intimacy, and care for another.  These things are being viewed through the lens of an observer rather than purely being swept away by the thoughts and emotions.  I feel it just as much as ever, but it has less attachment and grasping...more curiosity of how it will all unfold.  Not a curiosity of how the connection with the other person will unfold, but how my habitual patterns will unfold in how I relate to the situations that arise.

I am curious, does the emotional heart stop loving and feeling at the time of death?  Or does that energy carry over?  Have I carried this mind stream and style of loving life for the entirety of my lifetimes?  A person has commented recently that I have a beautiful mind, and for once, I am beginning to believe it.  Perhaps, this is the native state.  Perhaps, all beings have a native state of mind filled with beauty.

If our hearts are ready for anything, we are free to be ourselves. There’s room for the wildness of our animal selves, for passion and play. There’s room for our human selves, for intimacy and understanding, creativity and productivity. There’s room for spirit, for the light of awareness to suffuse our moments. The Tibetans describe this confidence to be who we are as “the lion’s roar.”
~ Tara Brach