What’s Love Got to Do with It

Valentine’s Day is a reminder to express your love to someone or to do something special for love.
Julia Day led a dance routine called, “One Billion Rising,” every year for several years; it was performed on the plaza rain or shine. Many members of the community practiced the dance together at the northside gym. All ages of women, children, and some men gathered each week to practice the dance routine. One Billion Rising is an activist movement to end violence against women and girls. Every year on Valentine’s Day the dance is performed all over the world, called “V-Day”, that was founded by Eve Ensler and inspired by her award-winning play, “The Vagina Monologues.” There are currently 5,800 V-Day related events annually.

The compassionate energy inspired by the dance and the music, “Break the Chain,” affected all who danced and witnessed that V-day on the plaza by bringing awareness to break the chain of violence and spread your love and support to all beings. Dare yourself to speak out in support of your community, by dancing, singing and voicing your concerns. That’s LOVE. Spread it around.

What is love to you? How do you express love? How do you support and nourish the love you share? Have you ever gone out of your comfort zone for love? Are you in love now? With what? With whom? Is there a song that expresses how you feel about love?

Mountain Joe: (5 years old)

Your mom is love. Everything is my mom. I love Mom. Mostly never done this before but I really want to go to the beach with her. We will swim and build sand castles. A vacation in a car or an airplane to the beach. I like to go everywhere with my mom.

Clem:

My favorite act of love is snuggling with my beloved. We scratch backs and give belly rubs followed by belly raspberries to top it off. I do this because it’s my juicy, delicious, nurturing, nourishing physical expression of sharing our love for and of each other. Physical affection is inclusive, uplifting. Include them in your space of intimacy. Affection makes you feel happy.

Aurora: (6 years old):

My family is love. Mom, Dad, Aliyn, Poppy, Orin, Crew and Wyani. We went to Florida. We loved going to Florida. I love taking walks with my mom collecting things, flowers, acorns. I love being with my brother jumping on the trampoline. We play tag. I went to Albuquerque with my Dad. I loved going to the trampoline park. A lot of trampolines. We went to the zoo too. I saw a snow leopard. I also love playing with my kitty, Poppy.

Mia:

Love is the energy that compels you to move around in this world. Certain times I like to be in love, like with red and pink at Christmas. It gives me so much energy living in color. I have learned to love from animals to perceive love and that’s how I carry love today through the layers, through the needs. This is how I contribute to the world seeing peoples layers so they can free their hearts. This is where my lesson of love lies.

Josefa:

My grandmother, Evelyn Valentine Lawrence, went to her Baptist minister when she found out I was a lesbian, because she was afraid I would go to hell. The minister replied, “Of course not, we are talking about Josefa!” My grandmother calls me to say, “I just want you to know, I know what you are and I love you.” Wasn’t that so sweet of her to love me that much to go to a minister?!

Holly:

When my son Miguel died, my family and friends came out. This one woman, a friend, asked me to come over and put me in her lap and held me. Her name was Dawn. I knew her from smoke jumping days. I was touched so deeply by someone to hold you like that. I love people who are not afraid to touch. I love that about the French.

Gary:

Love among soulmates. I met a person who does soulmate sketches. A soulmate does not have to be a lover. A soulmate you know forever, something that is eternal. It’s a calling you are getting through you. Love attracts everything unlike itself in order to be healed. What you are going through, dispel all those years of purgatory and send it through. When you release, show up in a way you haven’t been able to before.