In the Season of Love

In case you missed the flurry on my FB page, I had a birthday last week. As is my habit, I got out my cards for the first time in too long and went intro…

Kathleen, Madelon, me & Matt - all Lacombes and definitely retro

...spection.

You know, as opposed to retro…
Okay, bad joke.

Anyway, I did a message from the universe reading where 4 cards offer thoughts on body, heart, mind and spirit. The card that came up for heart was Judgement. In this case, it refers to divine judgement and the passage in the book mentioned Judgement Day – a personal Judgement Day.

I started by thinking about how, when the time comes, I want to be remembered as an honest, caring person that was willing of give of myself to help give voice to the voiceless. In my case, rivers, trees, wildlife and open space.

Elbow River Falls and less retro me.

But, I had just read the card for Body, so suddenly I found myself confronted by a disembodied voice asking, “And how about yourself? Did you love the body, mind and spirit that you are? Did you take care of your body, nurture your mind and live with your spirit always present?”

Oh, man! “I hadn’t really thought that mattered all that much.” I found myself answering with eyes to floor; which was not there.

What if when my personal Judgement Day comes, I fall short of loving myself? We always talk about being a good person and serving others. What if our job is to be good to ourselves? How much love do I give my body, mind and spirit?

Is it important to experience self-love in order to know how to love others? What if I am admonished for not loving the spirit I am?

I certainly recognize the need within me to look at my quality of self-love. I have been watching how I treat myself for a couple of years now and often find myself asking why I don’t come first in my own mind.

This reminder took me to my journals to find this from August 2011.

Red squirrel copied from
Dereila Nature Inn website.

“And the squirrel! It chattered from the trees, leapt over our heads on the branches and squirreled away pine cones in the wood pile. Someone on Tut posted a link to a site with an enchanted forest. I went there and asked for an animal to help me with self-love. The squirrel showed up. At first, this was confusing. Squirrel? But at the lake, squirrel was always there and always active. Like self-love should be.

“In the movie Up!, a talking dog interrupts himself often when he sees a squirrel. He suddenly stops what he is saying, turns his head quickly and yells, “Squirrel!” This is the appropriate action if you find your mind or your mouth saying unkind or unloving things about you. Recognize these things as squirrel chatter or a passing distraction from truth. Like this… “I am not good enou… SQUIRREL!””

Sculpture from the grounds of the
Reclining Buddha in Bangkok, Thailand

All over spiritual teachings of all kinds is the instruction to honor the Divine within. Any time a person fails to love themselves, they choose to not love that Divine within.

That puts a different perspective on loving God, loving the Holy Spirit doesn’t it? Do I want to arrive wherever it is we arrive and have a master stand before me saying, “Tsk, tsk, really! You could have loved the pure spirit that you carried within all these years a little better. You could have trusted the messages it gave, respected the temple it lived in and fed it better thoughts of gratitude, appreciation and love.”

Right now, I’m not sure I would be able to squeeze past that one if I end up there soon. Maybe our number-one job here is to love unconditionally the spirit that is always with us.