A Thought

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you with a simple notion:

Love is possible only for those who believe in it.

Thank you, goddess of love, for belief.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee

Question Those Whose Livelihoods Are Built Upon Anger

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you with a note of caution.

We live in an age of media figures, and many of those figures have developed as their stock in trade a certain manufactured outrage. Their harangues are visible nightly on the television and audible at all hours on talk radio, and while I personally perceive them to be tilted heavily to one side of the political spectrum, there are certainly examples on both the left and the right.

It's no wonder that they deal in anger. It's a potent fare, and one that can be cultivated with relatively little expense or effort. And because it naturally disengages our ability to reason clearly, its inclusion in any messaging product makes the quality of that product much less critical. If I can succeed in making you angry about a topic, I can sway your opinion more easily than if you remain dispassionate. An unmoved listener requires more evidence to be convinced than an enflamed one does.

I bring this up not to dissuade you from one political position or another, but merely to point out that a state of anger, while potentially very motivating, ultimately undermines the impulse toward peace, the impulse toward love. The merchants of anger therefore cannot move our world in a more peaceful direction, and do not have the interests of a more loving universe in their hearts. They may actually be well intentioned, in a misled way. But they cannot inspire us to greatness -- only to rash action or impotent frustration.

The next time something on television or radio angers you, ask yourself whether you are angry at the information itself, or if the person delivering the information is purposefully phrasing it with the intention of making you angry. If the information is what rouses your ire, take that emotion and find a way to act constructively on it. On the other hand, if it is the messenger who is goading you to fury, consider whether he or she has your best interests at heart.

In any event, remember that anger is most suitable when it is a response to injustice, and that justice requires both reason and compassion. Then cool your thoughts and contemplate what can be done in a way that will better and brighten the world for those around you.

Thank you, goddess of love, for the ability to temper one's temper.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee

Make a Habit of Living

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you with advice that I have long known yet somehow dropped of late from my routine.

The state of joy is only very rarely one that is delivered to us. More often by far, it is fought for, won, and earned through effort. When we long for joy, when we languish wearily awaiting a state of delight, we should not be surprised at its failure to appear.

There are times when the doing of things does not seem worthwhile. We all experience that feeling, the lassitude that says, "What is the point?" But the sensation of ennui, of purposelessness, is an illusion. It is a mask that creeps across the world because we have allowed ourselves to disconnect from that which fundamentally drives us.

The more we act, the more we work toward dreams, toward desires -- the more we do -- then in return, the more we are alive.

Weekly, daily, hourly, we should make effort.

We should undertake.

We should habituate ourselves to action.

Because when the doing of things is reflexive, the accomplishing of things is guaranteed -- even if not every accomplishment goes as expected.

Thank you, goddess of love, for good habits.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee

Where We Are

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you with this:

There.

A point in space, surrounded by infinity.

That's important: surrounded by infinity.

Too easily, we think of what is missing, what we lack.

But infinity allows for no true void. Everything is there. Everyone.

She. He. You.

We long for that touch.

Where is it?

There.

In the sea of all that enfolds us.

55

Thank you, goddess of love, for everything.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee

Birthdays

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you with wishes of happiness and joy.

Although we should not need any special occasion to celebrate our love for those in our lives who are particularly special to us, it is nonetheless a gift that tradition tells us to commemorate birthdays. We get busy, we get neglectful, and we sometimes forget, in the course of days or weeks, to speak of and show our affection with the frequency we ought to. Birthdays give us a nice prod, which is something that we as human beings often need.

Today is my most exceptionally excellent friend Strumpet's birthday, and I hope that it is the absolute best that it can be, because she is a blessing upon my life.

Thank you, goddess of love, for friends and birthdays, and the chance to share with others the warmth that they both make us feel.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee

A Brief Time in a Garden

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you with a scene.

I am on a bench in an enormous garden. A stream moves and speaks through the greenery behind me, speaks of the blue overhead, streaked with fragile white clouds. It speaks of beauty hurrying past me, from so far away to yet farther still. Its voice hangs there, constant and quick -- a small cousin to the mighty river a few miles distant, somehow louder in tone for all its lesser size. The air is cool. The only noise is the stream, although murmurs of birds and distant park-goers can also be heard.

Noisy, rushing, alive, vibrant -- how is a stream so peaceful when it is also all these things?

The answer must be that peace is not stillness. Peace is not quiet.

Peace is the calm that comes of doing what is your nature while the world moves on around you.

Thank you, goddess of love, for the subtly spoken words of a brook on its way to the sea.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee

Brightness and Air

Welcome, beautiful traveler. I greet you with an allegory.

Along a mountain pathway, I came to a place where the trail split. I had been climbing some time already, across rocky ground, sharp and ugly. Away in the distance, when I paused to look up, the sky and horizon showed me unreachable beauty. But close at hand, the terrain had only scrapes and exhaustion to give me.

At the split in the trail, I faced a choice. To one side the way became even steeper, but led up past boulders and jagged outcrops toward a sunlit summit, where I knew from the guidebook that green trees and a bubbling spring could be found, along with a quaint little hiker's refuge that had been built there long ago. The other path led down, straighter and easier -- into the mouth of a cave. The shadows inside had an unhealthy cast, as though even light found the air of the cave stale ... debilitating.

Who makes the choice to descend into darkness, to be shut off from any offer of comfort, just because the pull of gravity makes that direction less an investment in effort? Who picks cold, blanketing blackness over a strenuous push toward achievement, toward the splendor of all the world?

The proper choice seems so obvious, does it not?

Climb the mountain. It is gorgeous up there. You will be able to see so far.

Climb the mountain.

Thank you, goddess of love, for the path that should so plainly be taken.

Lovingly yours,

A devotee