My heart is feeling full, yet tender today.

I have so much billowing love in my life and have experienced deep loss...

On this day of love that was anchored as an energetic passage by St. Valentine and the countless sacred unions he supported in the 3rd century...

I want to speak about the heart today.

The heart is an intelligent, nuanced, and multifaceted space of feeling with immense capacity for everything wonderfully human and beyond.

In the Toltec tradition, the heart is seen as a flower... and it is a gift from Life to experience the fullness of its blooming...

Now how do we do this?

Surely, love (of self and other) is the core of this blooming... and I’ve discovered throughout my life that there are feelings that create space for even more of it!

Rose bushes need to be cut back in the fall farther than seems comfortable, so much so that without experience it feels like it may kill the whole darn plant... back to the thick stems, the resilient core of the plant...

And like this cosmic pruning, experiences in life can cut us deep, rip us open, break our hearts, and create massive pain but this is the secret gift that quite literally makes us stronger and, even more, creates space and greater capacity ~ if met with compassion and by feeling ALL OF IT ~ for more of our heart flower to bloom...

The rose bushes that get cut back have more blooms in the spring -- bigger and more fragrant, and so we are offered the same opportunity that is granted through the simple and sometimes excruciating act of feeling...

Not just feeling the pain of loss or heartbreak, both of which I’ve experienced in the depths...

But also the feeling of courage to open... and the vulnerable act of loving, and even more, very risky ability to receive love from another (be it a person, living being, or the universe itself).

A couple of years ago I stood before St. Valentine’s bones (relics) in Dublin, and my heart felt warm, expansive, and almost aching with love...

Part of what cultivated this virtue of LOVE that still emanates from his bones today was courage, and the risk to break free beyond the bounds of the rules of that time to actualize what he knew was true in his blooming heart...

The sanctity of love and union with ourselves and others, which is our birthright as humans...

And sometimes, the path to this glorious bliss and ecstatic truth is paved in pain, challenge, and compassion that sets the stage for this expansive blossoming!

May you receive the blessing of love that is seeking you... that is you.

Sincerely,

Bridget

P.S. A reflection from nature inspired this email. My orchid dropped its final withered blooms last spring, and instead of throwing it out (yes, I’ve done that in the past :( ). I trimmed back the brown stem and tended it more... patiently loving it where it was... almost a year has passed, and a new stem grew, buds emerged, and today (yes, today on Valentine’s Day), it bloomed!