Something inside the Breathings... A Litany of Love
Mar 6, 2026
*Old Store, Hot Springs, NC
The following is a series on love, in song, verse, and story. I have noted sources, except when the piece is from me.
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Love appears to change with development. That is, love is experienced differently as you grow psychologically (person) and, then, spiritually (non-person). Hence, one may, when acting from non-person, or true nature, appear unloving at times to one looking through the person lens. Love does not change, however. How it is able to manifest expands as consciousness opens more and more. Hence, the capacity and shapes love takes undergoes transformation from grounded in the body-and-mind to arising from spirit. In development, person is not left behind, it is transformed. In spirit, one can experience love all the way from bodily passion to dispassionate presence, what I have elsewhere called "Pure Presence," from personal and tribal inclusion to all-embracing embrace. Hence, what one means by "love" is based on who or what is speaking the word. And if we try to leap over a phase of development, that creates problems, for development is grounded on prior stabilization in a developmental phase and pulled onward by spirit from up the road, so to speak. To leap into a more-embracing phase can happen to anyone, but to stabilize at any phase takes time, and the transition from less embrace to more is not simply a one-time move. The developmental line, so to speak, is not straight. Development is a creeping, not a leaping. Just look at nature around you, and you will see this lesson in plain sight. Why is all this important? The less you live from consciousness-as-person, the more you are the means of love arising from the absoluteness of non-person. This does not mean you become an unfeeling, dissociated robot; it means you are yielded to a more capable welcome, with less body-and-mind, with its emotions, determination. Simply put, your capacity to love grows, and, finally, you can welcome all - not just human, not just on the human plane - for spirit excludes no one and nothing. This is embodied in the story of Jesus on the cross: "Forgive them, for they know not what they are doing." And the Jesus saying, "Spirit sends rain equally on the just and unjust."
All embracing does not mean you feel equally close to everyone or even like everyone. It does not mean you are open to share time with everyone. Love can invite in and keep out. Both go together. And some beings are best not welcomed in. Would you encourage a mate to continue being abused by an abuser? Would you sleep with a rattle snake? Are you wise in caring for others, while not taking care of yourself? Yes and no, doing and not-doing, together and apart, work and rest belong together. Love is wise, not foolish. We are all in, absolutely. Relatively, not so. And, so, the Beatles sang "All You Need is Love": no! we need wisdom, too. This is why in Buddhism the Compassionate Beings embody a union of wisdom-and-compassion. I may be able to drive my truck, but if my eyes are closed, where will I end up?
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Meeting the Anonymous Sage -
I hear you teach a lot about love. Is that true?
I can't teach anything about it. No one can.
But people say you do.
I use the word often.
Then, how can I learn what it is, if no one can teach it?
I'm going to get myself a cup of tea. May I get you something to drink?
Sure, thanks. Whatever you're having, I'll have.
She wanted to see, or so she said. Did she see? Until ready, no key can unlock the eyes. Sometimes, even then, we look in the wrong direction - but at least we are looking. Words open doors. Words close doors. Words reflect thoughts. Thinking we know keeps us playing with shadows on walls. A picture of the Sun has never warmed a face. How can you point left, if you keep pointing right? Why not try pointing nowhere?
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We mistake loving another with loving their appearance
When appearance elicits love love awakens to love - you awaken to yourself
Person loves person - the illusion being loves being - the truth
Self plays its trickery self bites the hook
Yet, how shall one swim in the deep without first wading into the shallows
How shall one ascend the love-ladder without taking a first step
Self can deny but not escape - love is before forms are seen through
Clouds cannot elude the Sun - love... - communing Light with Light
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The heat of a fire, a flame hidden, alone, burning blissfully inside, outside; Love rests within the breathings
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Lyrics by Bono, lead singer of U2; song for his wife... Yet, the message can apply to any relationship, including our relationship with ourselves... The love by which we love another, is the love by which we love ourselves.
If there is a light you can't always see And there is a world we can't always be If there is a dark that we shouldn't doubt And there is a light, don't let it go out
***
And I'm a long, long way from your hill of Calvary And I'm a long way from where I was, where I need to be
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The song of love is in every heart. Each of us longs to be loved, loved by a mother, a lover, a friend, a husband or wife. We long to be touched, to be held, to be embraced, to be understood, to be needed. We need to know that we are loved and we need to love in return. Love is the primal music of life, the song of creation, the fabric of being human.
*Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee. Love Is a Fire.
Loving someone is seen as a gift to them. Yet, allowing someone to love us is a gift to them, too. It is one love. If we refuse love from another, we deny them, we deny ourselves. Detachment and boundaries, while needed, can easily become a wall, and we find the wall is not merely between but all around - we have shut ourselves in by keeping others out. Yet, too, one can grow to invite the world in, while sitting alone in a house or walking alone in the woods. Still, we need flesh-and-blood communion. Spirit manifests to touch and be touched, to share and receive, to hold and be held, and to sit quietly together - and, yes, spirit manifests in the enjoyment of sex.
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Upon visiting a hospice patient's home for the first time. I was welcomed by her granddaughter, a caregiver, whom I had never seen. We sat at a table, talking, as she asked varied questions about our services, while the patient rested asleep in a nearby recliner...
She walks in, sits. I feel a force so pure, strong, I can only find one word to call it, "love," and so overpowering this struggle to speak. Looking to, looking away. - I know her, though have never met her... at least not in this life. Or maybe knowing her has nothing to do with meeting her in a prior or this life. - There is a knowing in time and a knowing outside time. - Words stumble out. Hands reach, fingers search for reply, any of likeness will satisfy. Goodbyes, driving away... confused. What is this I feel left with, holding alone? Feeling deeply, yet cannot say? A gift, after all the sorrows of love left behind, to let it in this way. Did I even choose? - Sometimes love breaks down the door... sometimes it whispers, please let me in. - And, yes, possibly for all those past sorrows, today, this could come to be.
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Daphne Rose Kingma, poet, psychotherapist, teacher of relationships, tells of an experience in Hawaii. Daphne was weary after a huge fire in her house. She was lying on the beach and did not want to have conversation with anyone. A little girl with a pinwheel came to her. The little girl asked, "Can I sing you a song?" The girl sang a beautiful song about friendship. The final line was, "So, I'm singing you this song, and I want to be your friend, will you be my friend, too?"
Daphne gave the following comment on meeting the little girl...
It was an absolutely exquisite gift. I will never see her again, I don't know her name, but we had an experience of deep connectedness and true love in that moment on the beach. There are hundreds of these moments in life that are so tiny that they don't register on this chart that we've all built about what love is. We think love has to look a certain way, have a certain outcome. But we're constantly gifted with such moments, experiences that are just breathtaking in their purity and their absolutely consecrated perfection.
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Love, like a leaf in wind, or carried along on a stream... aimlessly, it seems to you and me, but a tide trembles below the surface of every human face.
There is a Sea upon which the Mysteries of Love sail. Let Her carry you away, guided by Her own destiny. Do not hesitate, asking, "Where?"
My Friend, no one is wiser than the one who says to Her, though knowing not Her ways, "Yes."
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We can replace longing with love.
*Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. In Love with the World.
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Do not seek this Lover. Open the chest only and rejoice in the Treasure.
When you find Her necklace around your neck, take it off and pull the world to your happy heart.
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Communion is silent, yet it speaks; the most powerful communication is not of the mouth, but the heart.
So, why do we trust so much what we say? To even say "night" is not night; to say "day" is not day. Communication is more than talk. Truth is often lost in the opening of the mouth. Many things said are better simply lived. Yet, some things unsaid need to be said - like, "I love you, "I'm proud of you," "I appreciate you," "I'll miss you," and "Thank you." We can live on a small plot of land without thinking it is the whole world. Hints are often better than nothing, and silence is one of those hints. Has the Sun ever said, "Look! Here I am"? Being's silence can speak loudly, clearly. The question is, "Do we listen?" There are deaf people walking around everywhere. They hear, but they do not listen. So, let us learn to listen before hearing, or we will miss the many ways Love is present to get our attention. To enjoy the Love-rose, we stop and inhale deeply. We learn not just to rush on to the next thing we think we must do. Life shines in the spaces in-between here and there, this and that, you and them. What will most have mattered, when we breathe our last, and body weakens to release its hold on spirit? Love and moments of loving. Love is spirit, spirit is love. Why do we forget?
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So...
If I say, "I love you," (and there are many ways to say it) I cannot tell you what that is. Things can be defined and explained, love cannot. I can say, "Listen to your heart," for love clarifies itself, unveils itself, without disrobing itself of the mystery it is - the communion it offers, heart-with-heart.
(C) Brian Wilcox 2026
*I do not recall or still have access to the source of Kingma's account.
