All is Well

It's not about the cards. It can't be that people think Love's Freeway exists to sell cards, prints, books, calendars and such. Don't get me wrong: I'm happy when they sell. For the money? It's nice, but no: it's not for the sake of the money. I am as happy when I learn someone has read this column as I am when something sells. Happy because the word gets out. Happy because the Love's Freeway family grows larger. Happy because any time we are focusing on all things Love related, our focus is on Love and not elsewhere. Love gets a wider audience, or so it feels to me, and this pleases me.

In recent weeks, I have been engaged in an on-and-off dialogue about the expansion of Love's Freeway: what, when, how. And although I see expansion as good, and the prospect excites me, at another level, I am satisfied with the scope of Love's Freeway as is. The scope, but not the reach. As with Claritywork, I feel what it accomplishes and how it serves--message and methods--are perfect. I just want it to touch more people. I want the word to spread. I want to spread the word.

What word?

Well, I've been rethinking that this morning, and it occurs to me that the message of Love's Freeway could be distilled down to three words: All Is Well. The sky attests to this. The jonquils, popping through the brown cold earth yet again attest to it. The Spanish orange I just peeled and enjoyed segment by sweet segment attests to it. Venus, situated nightly just opposite our windows, attests to it. My fireplace in Boston attests to it. This pot of Irish honey that will sweeten the next many weeks' worth of tea attests to it.

There is a mantra that plays each time I teach a "Just Write" course. In the latter half of the first class, we focus on detail, which is to the writer what the color palette is to the painter. Be awake to the details around you but don't be self conscious I read, or ask a student to read from Writing Down the Bones. And I swear: these are words to live by, not only words to write by--the first few, anyway:

Be awake to the details around you... I could say be awake to the grace around you. Or to the perfection around you. Or to the miracles around you: isn't every entry of these columns about that? How many times now have I said, in one form or another: we look, but we don't necessarily see. And that's what it means to be awake. To be awake is to see. It is realizing as self evident that all is well.

This is Love's Freeway's raison d'etre. Surely it is clear by now that this is it's purpose: to serve as the finger that points to the exquisite perfection called "moon." Not to be the moon, but to put a spotlight, a focus there so that anyone following that pointing, that finger, will look, will see it and say, "Oh, wow, look at that!?! Look at that big, beautiful, miracle-of-a-moon," or equivalent.

What makes "moon" a miracle? Well, how did it get there, first off. And what keeps it in constant and reliable revolution? And, well, consider the tides--human, animal, and earthly. What about its effect on planting and growing cycles? For starters. Then there's the sun. But surely I needn't go on and on delineating evidence that the sun is a miracle, worthy of our awe and wonder.

But my word of choice for this matter of "all is well" as you well know, for these various evidences of miracles of perfection, is Love. Love is having Its way with moon, with sun, with water, with earth--with life as we know it and beyond. And I am here to say so, one lone voice who continues to invite other voices to join in. Through the words, through the images, I hope I am succeeding in being that finger pointing to the moon of "All Is Well."

Why?

Because my sister is stressed today--every day, it seems. She's looking forward to the Clarity Book (my primary work in progress at present). She says she could use some clarity.

Why?

Because my neighbor-friend has lost his second and final sibling to cancer--this one making it to 46, at least (his sister passed on at 35)--and I imagine that both my friend and his parents are not particularly focused these days on that moon I'm pointing to.

Because my writer-client tells me she started the day sad, in a bad place, pushing against the current.

Because my brother is worried about the incredibly shrinking value of his stock these days. Because so many are focused on what seems to be awry, catastrophic, failing--on all sorts of evidence that seems to suggest to them that all is most certainly NOT very well.

Environment, economy, cutbacks, cancers, wars, terrorism, molestation, murder: violence, unrest and decline of all sorts abound. But still, in the face of all of these, I am here to say that all is well. I am pointing to the moon and I will keep pointing to that moon. To arrest progress? To fly in the face of activism and all strides being made to eliminate, to overcome these ravages? No! Of course not. And anyway, what are these if not further evidence that Love knows Its way. Even the ravages are gifts, are Love speaking. Take the melting ice caps, for example. If this was what it took to smarten us up, to change our course, this is what it took. Our ways have been severely damaging, disastrous. We have been abusing our lifelines, misusing our privilege of direct access to all the wealth of the Universe. The time has come to show some respect, to honor the privilege.

I think of the vastness and power of ocean. Seafarers know you don't get very far out there without a healthy respect for the sea. It is mighty and capable of great good and great harm. Ditto with the handling of a weapon--a firearm, say. If you put a gun in the hands of someone who doesn't know how to use it, you shouldn't be surprised when trouble follows.

Love is at least this vast and potentially dangerous.

As for the economy, what ever happened to "What goes up must come down"? Did we really think that it all could climb up and up and up ad infinitum? Keep inhaling without an exhale and you'll explode!

Witness the explosion. Witness the natural order and design. Witness how all is well.