Bleeding Love, Willingly and Joyfully

“Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you Love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of Love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.”
- Kahlil Gibran, On Love

Love is a calling and a journey that beckons us to follow. I know you have felt it too, the soul spark inspired by a a sunrise/set, a rainbow, a Lover, a friend, family, a child laughing, an animal playing, the beauty of nature. We have all felt the gravitational pull of Love luring us into its aura, offering us perhaps the most profound beauty that we get to experience in this incarnation. 

And..

Love is the forge that transforms us through joy AND pain.

Through its trials and tenderness, Love helps us discover the secrets of our own hearts.

Love is not a destination we command; it is a force that chooses and shapes us if we are open.

Love is a sacred purification

Love asks us to be in it, not to capture it. When we try it becomes elusive, will hurt us, and even leave us. Love's fire is extinguished when it cannot breathe.  

The loss of Love is one of our greatest fears. Sometimes we so adamantly attempt to avoid this pain that we do not fully heed the call of Love, do not surrender to all that it has to show us. We may even actively avoid it, never learning the depths of our own hearts and the all-encompassing  infinite universe that always holds us. 

In this image, there is a being who is modeling for us what it means to “bleed willingly and joyfully” in order to have the full experience of what Love has to offer.They are surrendering completely, knowing that they are held in the hands of the universe, with symbols emanating from them that represent a mantra of “I (eye) Love.” While their eyes are closed to fully receive, there is also a representation of their eyes wide open, offering an invitation to engage, go deep, and be truly seen. These eyes are offering a look of Love that is compassionate, sultry, fierce, and a no-holes-barred honest mirror. There is no promise of outcome in these eyes, only an invitation into a transformative journey and robust life experience. 

If this card has come to us, it is boldly asking us our intention regarding how we want to show up in the finite days we have left on Earth.  How willing are we to show up for Love? How willing are we to do the work to take down the walls that we have built in self-defense from Love’s  hurts, opening a clear channel to become Love embodied, to be transformed and have experiences beyond our imagining? 

We are all “worthy” of this level of Love, all we have to do is  be willing to be reshaped.

When we exist in Love we cannot be separate from one another and all life.

When we exist in Love, we become a part of the larger heartbeat of existence.

Points to Consider:

• Are there times that I am hearing Love beckon that I am afraid to heed? What is the hesitation? What am I protecting myself from?

• If I feel that I cannot open to Love, is it that where Love is leading me is “unsafe,”, or is that I do not trust myself to surf the waves of what might come my way? Is there a way I can improve my own balance to experience more Love in life?

• Are there folks and circumstances that I need to forgive to be able to open my heart back up to the full experience of love? This is NOT the same as welcoming the person/circumstance back into your life. Forgiveness can happen from afar.