There must be something in the air around Valentine's Day. This last week or so I have been pondering love. Love for myself and love for all beings. And love for the particular beings that I share my world with.

It all started with my preparations for the Big Adventure* at Westacre. As has happened so often in my life, I have beautifully expressed and detailed plans for what I need to do to get a website for the project up and running. The plans have been there for months. They only thing I haven't done is actually start designing the thing and writing content.  I have had so many grand plans in my life, but actually implementing them has always been a huge problem.

My usual strategy is to 'make' myself do it. And that often works really well. Especially when I know there is going to be somebody judging my work at the end, I am really good at forcing myself into doing stuff. But when it's just for me... Nope. Making myself write, pushing myself and thinking that I should be writing, feeling guilty that I haven't done it yet, etc. It just doesn't work. It just makes me tense and unhappy. It probably doesn't do much for my health, either.

Then, the other day, I remembered something I already knew. Is it just me, or is it in the nature of humans that we have to learn something several times over until we finally really get it and begin to live it? Back in the autumn I wrote about being gentle to myself, and how it helped me open to the world. But as I went back to work, and I wanted to start making some progress on that web site, the idea of being gentle to myself had got lost somewhere.

Loving myself is such an alien concept. It's certainly not something I do spontaneously. But it is what I need to learn. When I gently love myself, writing becomes less of a chore. Just being kind to myself is a creative miracle medicine. I have actually started writing. The Westacre 'About' page has its content written.

Continuing my intention to soften and witness life as it flows through me and around me, I know that I need to love myself to be able to do this as well. Allowing myself to let go of old protective reactions and to deeply feel life only works if I give myself that same gentle love. And if I am willing to extend that love out to the life that surrounds me as well the dream for myself becomes a dream for my world.

I asked Spirit what most needs to be loved. The answer was: "All of a person, including their dreams and potentials." I am reminded to look at myself in a different way. If there is something that I have learned over the last few months of illness, it is that the essence of me is Spirit, is Goddess. Everything else is history, ancestral or personal. I can carry that history as a burden, as a strait jacket that limits my freedom. Or I can wear it as a robe of many colours, of hues and subtleties that help me to express my unique gift to the world.

Extending this thinking to other people and to all beings, I can also choose to see them as expressions of Spirit. Each has their unique facets, but are essentially aspects of All That Is, the Unity of all beings which is our true reality. If I can love other people and all the life surrounding me for what they truly are, I find myself surrounded with so much potential. There is no more need to compete or to envy others for their accomplishments. Everyone and everything is part of a greater myself. It is in our Unity, as partners in the great project of Being, that we can accomplish great things.

As Druids, we pray for 'love of all existences'. This Valentine's Day I wish you love for yourself and for all beings as part of one Existence that is our larger identity.

*the Big Adventure: My husband and I are going to renovate a house and make it as environmentally friendly as we can. I plan to run a mini retreat centre from there. This is Westacre Day minus 311.