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This week, our resilience card is Calling from Resilience Alchemy. Since this week is also commonly associated with love, it seems important to think about Calling through the lens of love.
What do I mean by Calling? And what do I mean by love?
I think of Calling as a mysterious sense of knowing, a tugging of desire. If we can, we follow what calls to us, don’t we? Some new pathway beckons, a new idea emerges, an intriguing phrase catches our attention, our hearts are moved and, suddenly, we have a new idea or a new focus to move toward.
We have a new love.
In this context, I think that perhaps Calling is what happens when we are brave enough to come forward when we are invited toward love.
But here is where it can get tricky, because what even is love?
Whenever I think deeply about love, I come back to the Ancient Greeks. I know, I know, its old news to talk about the Greeks and their many words for the different kinds of love, but the diversity of their usage remains relevant: how could we expect so much from the one word love while simultaneously rejecting all the endless possibilities it represents? And why do we obsess over our Valentine or lack thereof (hi, it’s me), when there are so many other ways of loving that we can explore?
Language is so strange, really. It can evolve and change to fit the needs of its users. But more often than not, it evolves and changes to fit the needs of systems. And many of the systems that we currently live under are not built in the interest of love in all its multifaceted possibility.
Romantic love is only a small part of our story, of any story. But it is the only love we’re encouraged to celebrate this week.
What I’m really trying to say is that sometimes wide, expansive concepts—like love—become conflated and narrowed. And love was never meant to be as narrow as we’ve been led to make it. And that’s not to say, either, that I think romantic love is narrow, per se. But I do think that it is only part of a larger tapestry of meaning, a larger calling we are always being invited to move toward. Answering a call to love can look many different ways and can encompass many different kinds of loving, not just the romantic.
So, what are you being called to love this week? Small or large, living or inanimate, fleeting or lasting, what is calling for your love? What calls to your tender1 heart? And how can you answer?
And if you hear no love calling to you and become disheartened, remember that you, as well, can be the one doing the calling. You are not only allowed to answer. So, what do you want to call out toward in love this week?
Lastly, when I pulled the Calling card, three questions came into my mind:
If love comes calling, how will I answer?
If love comes calling, will I know it is love?
If love comes calling, can I release my fear?
This week, I invite you to ask yourself these same questions and really enjoy exploring/surrendering as you find your answers.
Remember that the word tender comes from the PIE root *ten which means to stretch!