The Love of Your Life

This is excerpted from my February What Shines newsletter two years ago:

We become "the Light of the world" first within our own beings; then we're able to shine this radiance outward. It's like any other learning process: we can only serve others from a well that runs full and deep.
In this spirit, I offer you an evocative embrace from Derek Walcott (sounding remarkably reminiscent of T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets, and Rumi):

Love After Love

The time will come 

when, with elation 

you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror 

and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat. 

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

Remember that February 14th heralds the actual celestial alignment celebrated in song 40 years ago, and a true heart-opening opportunity for the entire planet ~ blessed are we to be a part of it!