Love Month

It's all about red and chocolate out there these days: hearts and roses and truffles and such. I noticed yesterday that even Old Navy is in the swing, with a whole display from boxers to pj's to onesies of Valentine's-themed colors and prints.

Just as I appreciate Thanksgiving for drawing our hearts and minds to gratitude and bounty, and I enjoy the holiday season--Solstice, Hanukkah, Christmas, etc.--for its focus on the return of the Light and all the glow that that brings, I embrace Valentine's Day as an opportunity to honor the heart and its deepest stirrings: to celebrate all things Love. If Love's Freeway had a patron saint, I suppose it would have to be Saint Valentine!

With February 14 and Love's Freeway in mind, I woke up the other day thinking, "Never mind just a day, how about a whole month of Love?" So why not? I hereby declare February "Love Month"--and invite you to "turn up the volume" on your Love-light.

How will we celebrate Love Month? Well, there are of course roses and champagne, flowers and fruit cakes, candy and candlelight. There's everything from lingerie to Love's Way (and custom Freeway cards and prints and such) to help "count the ways." And let's not forget the simple but priceless gestures: the tender kiss, the gentle glance, the promise kept, the warm hand. Let's say we break out and get creative though--make it up as we go, a moment an impulse an inspiration at a time. We have the power to move Love in the world today, is all I know, the power to spread it around, or not. Consider this note, which I received with payment for a recent book order:

Dear Kathryn,

Your little book is a large treasure.
It is like a whisper in my ear--to
continue, to not give up--with so
much hope & so much promise.
I keep it close. Thank you so much.

Now there's the power in motion! What a gift-of-an-acknowledgement --I am so grateful for it, and the many others I have received. They let me know my Yes, my listening and following the stirrings of my heart, has made a wider difference. I am grateful to the generous hearts that take the time, the moment of pause, to speak or write so that I can know: I am helping to keep the Love in motion.

Is there a note of thanks you've yet to write? A word of appreciation you've yet to speak? Go, go: go love love love like there's no tomorrow. Be on a wild rampage of love, that's my invitation. And oh, by the way: keep your hands and hearts open all the while, because it's true what they say. You really can't give it away!