SET YOURSELF ON FIRE AND FIND THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE

Light will someday split you open
Even if your life is now a cage.

Little by little, You will turn into stars. 
Little by little, You will turn into 
The whole sweet, amorous Universe. 
Love will surely burst you wide open
Into an unfettered, booming new galaxy. 

You will become so free
In a wonderful, secret
And pure Love that flows
From a conscious, One-pointed, Infinite Light. 
Even then, my dear, The Beloved will have fulfilled
Just a fraction, Just a fraction! 
Of a promise He wrote upon your heart. 

HAFIZ

What happens the other side of the falling? What is left when life as you knew it, ‘you’ as you knew ‘you’ becomes dust?

In my experience, it leads to the igniting of an eternal flame.

As Hafiz puts it here, it is grace, light that splits you open in the end. But you’d be forgiven to think it was something else at the time! I certainly did! (‘why God why!!???’)

Recently I started to notice that the biggest change is that my heart is now constantly on fire. Love now permeates everything. I spent so long looking for that divine union and love in my life. Only now I am pretty sure it was here all along!

I realized also recently that the biggest struggle of my life had been how to live with an enormous heart. How to manoeuvre around existence carrying this big burning ecstatic flame that consumes and absorbs everything in love.

The ‘weight’ of all this ‘unused’ love kept me hungrily seeking a place to nest, a heart to merge with. Like lightning searching for its perfect strike I had loved and loved and loved, person to person to person, never resting. I had exhausted myself.

During the worst part of the break through, a Sufi friend said to me that having a huge heart was a big responsibility. The suffering only came from a misconception. The belief that my heart was here mainly to love another - a partner. She said that in the fullness of time, yes it most likely would.

But the mistake was not understanding that my heart was extra big in order to love God first.

Now…I am not religious, I am not spiritual, I just am. (All that other ‘stuff’ got destroyed in the fire too! more on that another time.)

But I sat with this and knew that for me, this was true. I already was in the divine union I had always wanted. It was with everything and everyone.

Now when I am out walking for instance,  I find that love coming back through everything to me in a lack of separation.  I am learning to live whilst being increasingly on fire and holding more and more love. This appears to be my job even!

Today two swans turned up on the lake. The empty lake I circle every day with the buzzards and kestrels. Suddenly adorned with two young lovers. My heart burst and I cried.

In a planet so huge, with land in every continent to choose, these two had shown up in my tiny tiny pinprick dust speck of existence. Today. In this way. So perfect. That is grace.

That’s what a heart on fire sees.

And does it still fall in love with people like it did? Worse than ever! My heart’s big enough for all of yous!

Only now, I don’t shrink it away. When I sit with someone I love I let the kerosene pour on and burn the flames higher and higher. If it wants to, I allow it.

The waves still crash upon the shore with intensity but now, I don’t need anything in return.

How can I need anything from you when it’s coming at me from every direction!

Maybe that’s what they meant when they said love is its own reward.

…….

SET YOURSELF ON FIRE

So if you are feeling lonely, or lost, in un –requited love, or wondering now if you will ever really find that 'someone'.

 If you are terrified that you may now be facing life alone; a crazy cat lady existence or endless lonely nights. 

If you are in the great burn out of the dark night and the ‘hollowness’ has got you.

I am inviting you to try out, just for a moment, for fun! an idea.

What if I am already in the divine partnership I have always wanted?

What if it never came through another, but through everything and I’m missing this?

What if there is so much love coming at me now that it’s not even personal?

What if it is actually an act of love that is 'destroying' my life and not a tragedy?

Just a thought.

There’s not a lot I know for sure anymore, but this is what I would recommend. 

Let the walls of the tower in your life fall. Don’t try to stop it; don’t even try to save yourself. It’s 99.9% futile!

As your life burns down, give it a hand even and set yourself on fire!  throw more petrol on and watch it blow!

Under all of ‘this’ is something more beautiful than anything else you could imagine. Why delay!  

Will you still get bad days?… guaranteed!

Will you still want, need, have heartbreak?... guaranteed!

Just know when you do join with a person again, it will be different. You may find you have something real to offer for the first time ever! 

 And along the way,  when your heart gets broken it won’t break like it did. It will just keep sweetly unfolding it’s petals under the shattering, to another layer and another layer and another.

And a little voice will say..

"Wow!’ well if something that beautiful just passed me by, I can’t wait to see what comes my way next!"

Whatever next!?

I am yours forever

LOVE the UNIVERSE :)