The Appearance of Love

The appearance of love can come at any moment... but is it love, or is it something else?

Sometimes people confuse lust with love, but we also need to take into account sacred unions: the bond between two souls separated and brought back together. A sacred union can carry the appearance and vibration of deep love, but just because it appears does not mean it is meant to fully unfold at that particular moment.

For those of us who have learned to embody unconditional love, we can sense and feel these connections on a deep level. Though a partner may feel the same attraction, it does not always mean they have attained the same conscious courage to allow love to flow where it wants to go.

While one person may be smitten by the appearance of love, the other may be equally conscious of the connection yet fearful of what could come from such an attraction.

In moments like these, the openhearted, unconditional lover can become whiplashed by the back-and-forth of someone who wants to jump in fearlessly one moment, only to retreat into the security of separateness the next.

A deep, sacred union that seems to transcend time and space may reveal something true about the future without necessarily shedding the proper light on the present moment. The present can easily be overlooked or pushed aside for the security and comfort of what is familiar.

When the appearance of love arrives, ask yourself a few questions:

Is this person capable of loving you to the depths that you are capable of loving?

Have they healed the wounds of their past enough to observe their trauma rather than continuously live from within it?

Do this person’s actions and words align, or are inconsistencies in their behavior battling against the promises spoken by their ego?

All things happen in divine timing.

For someone like me, I can easily become disheartened by the appearance of love once it has had time to fade or gain distance. When one person is not ready for a sacred union, they may alienate the other, producing feelings of insecurity and unworthiness.

It can be easy to say that one person is simply expecting too much. But those of us who know we are capable of loving deeply also carry the belief that our divine partner will eventually be capable of meeting us at those same depths.

When someone shows you their heart, appreciate the moment for what it is: a space in time where two reflections can find peace and stillness in the heartbeat of the other.

The key to all of this is nonattachment.

To be able to have, appreciate, and then release the words spoken and the actions felt.

We must remember that just because someone is not in a place where they are brave enough to love us does not mean we are doing something wrong. We may simply be showing up genuinely and authentically before the other person has learned how to do the same.

All vibrations are drawn toward light, and sometimes we draw in people who want to believe they are capable of loving someone like us. But if there are shadows that have not been acknowledged or confronted, the two people together may not yet be capable of reaching the pinnacle of what that love could become.

If you find yourself deeply called toward a partner who is unavailable, ask yourself:

Where in my body do I feel this desire and attraction... for me, the heart, the crown, the sacral region?

Is this an illusion of perfection, or does this genuinely contain the beginnings of a beautiful love story?

Am I capable of holding space for this person while they move through their healing?

There will be times when an unavailable or healing person becomes distant, struggles to respect communication boundaries, or lacks the confidence to show up in the way they wish they could.

Love is the journey, not the destination.

If you can learn to love yourself, and even love another person through the pain of insecurity or discontent without abandoning yourself in the process, you become stronger for it.

To hold space for another person's healing can be honorable.

To love without possession is one of the purest forms of love.

If there is someone you have met who stirred emotions to life within you, but you were too afraid to pursue them, ask yourself why.

Does your fear; or the illusions created by that fear, hold more importance than the soul standing in front of you?

By neglecting this person, am I honoring the sacred union, are you honoring myself?

Whenever we make decisions entirely from fear, we tell ourselves, and perhaps the divine, that we lack faith in the path presented to us. We risk rejecting the very blessing we once asked to receive simply because its arrival challenges the life we have grown comfortable living.

Fear kills progress.

When fear controls your actions, you can begin acting from a place of ignorance. And when you act from ignorance, you can emotionally harm another person.

You may end up hurting the very person you wish you could have loved.

You can leave them questioning whether they are lovable, whether they matter, or whether the connection they felt was ever real.

And when you repeatedly treat people as though they do not matter, perhaps there is also something within yourself that you have not yet learned to value.

Perhaps courage is part of self-love.

If we cannot move beyond fear, it becomes difficult to stand fully in the light of truth and love. Without love for others and love for ourselves, there is no light inside the temple.

And when there is no light in the temple, darkness is given room to reign.

The darker forces of human existence have been here since the beginning. They prolong ancestral trauma and separateness through distorted self-image, false illusions, black-and-white thinking, fear, and societal expectations.

Many people feel pressure from their communities to remain exactly who they have been conditioned to be... the person everyone around them recognizes and understands.

But we have to expand our sight.

We have to honor what is real within us.

We have to become curious about our desires rather than immediately becoming afraid of them.

When the appearance of love arrives, examine it.

Do not blindly chase it, but do not immediately run from it either.

Listen.

Observe.

Feel.

Ask what it has come to teach you.

And trust that you are being guided toward the experiences that will reveal more of who you truly are.

When you trust, you set yourself free.

Be free.

The Beautiful Story Never Told, Jo He and Mai Taeo

"I fell into you like a cascade of desire. Resting on your heart I felt  your heartbeat say you loved me. The same sacred sentence your eyes and smile whisper too."