The Journey Through To Love
I am frustrated when I think of love these days.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe in love. I’m not jaded. However, I am frustrated, not with love exactly but more because of the lack of love all around.
Love is one of the most powerful aspects to the human experience. Feeling it, not only defines humanity but makes the experience worthwhile. Which is why, when I think of love I feel frustration, even anger, viscerally.
When I look around, at my life in general and the greater world, we have been robbed of the human experience to know, feel, and share love. We live in a world that prioritizes money, egos, individualism, and socially damaging constructs. We are plagued by racism, sexism, misogyny, capitalism, ableism, and homophobia. We have systems in place that make it close to impossible for many to even afford to exist. We could make it better, but we don’t. Our souls have been poisoned by power and control.
What kind of human experience is this?
I’ve been asking the universe this question for years. While my own human experience sucked the life out of my soul. As a Black woman, my experience began to rot before I could even talk. In my bones, in my flesh, in my DNA, I feel the trauma, the agony, the fear, and the heart shattering cries of my ancestors. I feel the un-discussed secrets of my family. I feel the unacknowledged cries of my matriarchal line, silenced under the weight of the patriarchy. I feel the longing in my blood, echoing through my bones, to experience love.
But first, we must recognize, we must acknowledge, we must heal.
To think we can experience the all encompassing care, respect, affirmation, and community that make up the love experience, with no regard to the realities of our world should be a criminal offense. We can not leapfrog straight to love without regard for the hate, fear, and injustice that has become commonplace in our society, filling the holes left in our souls after generations of lovelessness. We will never fix a problem we are not first willing to look square in the face, recognize, and acknowledge.
These systems must be broken, dismantled, abolished, and burnt to the ground.
We need to allow humans to be human again. It is detrimental. When humans are stripped of their humanity, destruction is king and nothing we touch is spared. Even our planet, this beautiful spinning ball, cries out, broken, in response to our dehumanization and lovelessness. Her soil, poisoned with the centuries of blood spilled, humans killed, for what? Greed. Power. Control. Fear.
When I close my eyes I can almost envision what it would be like to have our humanity restored. I can almost imagine what it would feel like to have overwhelming love replace the overwhelming fear coursing through our veins. I can almost see it and then the vision fades. Blocked by generational pain, trauma, blood loss, and dehumanization.
Who among us will decide, “This stops with me?”
To experience love within oneself, in community with one another, and in relationship with our planet is worth the vulnerable journey we must take as individuals and a collective.
The way forward is found within.
