Love Archives - Page 5 of 11 -

We Are Instruments

By Simone Lipscomb | May 5, 2014

The guitar and musician were within a few feet of me. His hands gently and purposefully changing frets and playing notes captured my attention. I found myself in a kind of trance watching and listening. Hearing not only the music, I heard my inner voice clearly say: We are instruments. Just like the guitar can sit and be silent or allow the touch of Spirit to move through and create beautiful gifts for the world.

I allowed this mantra to flow throughout my being like a trickle of water from head to toe. I felt my body become hollow and filled with the essence of Spirit. It didn’t last that long because Will began singing lyrics again and so my attention was drawn back to his voice. And yet the idea expanded as I saw his hands as instruments, his voice and realized that each of us have the capacity to be instruments of Love…Life…the Creative Force.

*Kerry Parks, glass artist creating one of her beautiful pieces of art*

We have freedom of choice. We can resist the Creative Impulsive that desires to fill us and flow through us or we can be open and receptive instruments.

Armondo owns a cave diving site in Akumal, Mexico and carves beautiful statues to honor the Earth. His energy is spent in this endeavor. — *Armondo owns a cave diving site in Akumal, Mexico and carves beautiful statues to honor the Earth.*

So what’s the secret to doing this? Perhaps its different for everyone but there are common threads of courage, determination, surrender, a playful spirit.

*Anthony Crawford of Sugarcane Jane and Willie Sugarcapps*

Have you ever watched someone in the process of creating? What do you notice? In others I am aware of them going into a sort of meditative state or zone where they allow their gifts to express freely without filtering or resisting. For my own creative endeavors its a complete surrender to being present in the moment and allowing inspiration to move me without judging or criticizing. The key is being in the flow.

There are endless ways we can be instruments of the Creative Flow (or whatever label you wish to call it). It can be as simple as interacting with others every day with an open heart. Or allowing Love to love through us to animals, friends, the Earth. There are no bounds or limits to Love flowing through us except those we impose.

*Savana Lee Crawford of Sugarcane Jane and Willie Sugarcapps*

Let it come through your voice….

Your hands…..

Your words….

Excerpt about a dive from, Sharks On My Fin Tips: “Everywhere I looked life was evident… As I moved, I absentmindedly started to hum a tune. From what depths did the song come? It seemed to come from my heart and was quite pleasant so I allowed it to find expression by humming through my scuba regulator. It was not easy to emit any sound because the mouthpiece occupied the majority of space in my mouth, but I made the effort to let the music come forth.

The more I droned, the stronger the emotion became until I felt a constriction in my throat. The sensation was so strong I had to stop humming and take a deep breath. When I halted I heard an answering refrain from somewhere outside myself. Without hesitation I knew it to be the song of the Ocean.

With the realization came a wave of joy so powerful that I sobbed into my regulator and tears flooded my mask. The presence I felt earlier in the dive grew larger in my awareness. It became tangible and very real to me. I felt it surround me like a warm blanket.

The consciousness of the Mother Ocean was reaching out to me, tapping my heart with Her liquid fingers. It was Her song I had been singing…I hung motionless in the water column, overcome with the sweetest love I had ever felt.”

*Kit & Steve Schmeiser hosting a Mountain Wild gathering in Asheville, NC*

Allow yourself to be open….a channel…an instrument for Love and see what magnificent wonders are born within you to gift to the world.

Virgin grove of trees in Tennessee...allow your hands to be instruments of Love... — *Virgin grove of trees in Tennessee…allow your hands to be instruments of Love…*

Children…Our Hope

By Simone Lipscomb | March 12, 2014

Tonight I spoke to my local community’s cub scout group. We gathered at the St. Paul’s Episcopal Chapel in Magnolia Springs and I shared a video presentation I produced on endangered species of the Alabama coast…specifically sea turtles and manatees.

The boys and parent/leaders were attentive and asked questions and showed a genuine and engaged interest in the message I brought them. It always makes my heart sing to participate in these programs. But it was the closing of their meeting that deeply touched me.

One of the boys was asked to close with reverence and he offered a prayer. First, he expressed gratitude for the sea turtles and manatees and other animals. Then he spoke of gratitude for our beautiful world. He was thankful for me being able to come and share with them. And finally…well, admittedly I was so deeply touched by his prayerful expression of love and gratitude for nature and our planet and animals that I lost the last bit of what he was saying.

Volunteering doesn’t offer financial rewards but having the opportunity to share video footage, still photographs and personal stories of encounters with sea turtles and manatees with children eager to learn and willing to engage with awe of our planet gives me hope. Honestly there are days when I read the news and see the horrible ways humans treat each other, animals, land, plants, the ocean and other water and I feel despair. But this night, I came away with profound hope and that is pure gold to me.

On days when we experience sadness, grief, despair and even anger over what’s happening to our beloved planet and all life here, I think the best way to balance those feelings is to pass along our love for the planet to those willing to listen…and especially to children, our hope.

A Child’s Fear

By Simone Lipscomb | March 2, 2014

The floats were slowly moving past with beads and moon pies and other Mardi Gras bounty being thrown from their decks. Music filled the air along with a general happy vibe. Then a loud shot rang out and the little boy in front if me dropped to the street and covered his ears. It was only the pirate float’s mini-cannon firing blanks but to the little boy it was gun fire.

Photographing Mardi Gras is great fun. Capturing different faces and costumes is quite a diversion from the nature photography that is my focus. But on this day my attention kept being drawn to the little boy who repeatedly dropped to his knees and flinched whenever there was the sound of a gun during the parade. Admittedly, I was unnerved a bit at first because the crowd was quite large and we all know anything can happen. But once I knew the source of the blasts it was simply an annoyance. For the child, it was anything but that.

Until reaching ten to twelve years of age, a child is in a concrete stage of learning without the ability to conceptualize and gain understanding of what is real and what is not real. So for the little boy yesterday, the shotgun blanks in the cannons were real gun fire. He couldn’t see over the crowd so could not locate the source of the blasts.

Fear was evident in his eyes and face, in his body movements. I finally knelt down and said, “Those sounds are scary aren’t they?” He nodded and his face relaxed. He went back to waving to floats and gathering beads and moon pies.

I can’t stop thinking about him…and all children who live in fear because of an increasingly violent society. What have we done to create a more gentle world? How have our actions or perhaps our non-actions contributed to the anxiety and fear of our children? How can we help make our communities kinder, more nurturing for our youth?

A quote from A Course in Miracles comes to mind: “What is not love is fear.” Lately I have asked some tough questions and with every hard question I ask the answer always points to love.

So…may we collectively find that which keeps us from loving fully and clear it from our hearts and minds. May love continue to grow and blanket our precious young ones. May the example we set teach our children of love instead of hate, of love instead of fear.

Light of the Soul

By Simone Lipscomb | January 31, 2014

Seeing the light of a person’s soul is one of the most profound experiences I’ve ever known. He had a wide open heart and unbounded love shining forth for me and I had an open heart and mind to receive it. To know love as given through an open heart can be rare, but it need not be.

While it wasn’t a forever relationship for me, the love generated from it lives on strongly in my heart. And I continue to be grateful.

As humans we have moments of allowing our light to shine and other moments when fear takes over and creates a cloak around the light. It can be scary to be open if others are changing around us. When life events create change, the temptation is to withdraw and not risk being open, not risk being vulnerable. That’s when all our filters kick in and we see the world through our wounds instead of with the eyes of spirit. Every person alive has most likely experienced this.

Last week a three hour lunch with a friend produced pages of notes as we bounced ideas off of each other about how to make a difference, how to be a positive force. One of us chewed food while the other spoke…all the while the chewer listened and allowed inspiration to come forth. Then we switched roles. Both of us have experienced frustration in our life’s path and the direction we feel guided. What came from that meeting was the simple idea of allowing love to move through us and open the way. An answer for all?

I find that when I become fearful, I get tense. As I tense my body, my thoughts follow and I feel smaller. And then…love is struggling to shine through the tiny cracks of space left open in my heart. But when I relax my body, my mind relaxes and then my heart opens and there is room for love. Or maybe the mind is first…or maybe the heart. But somehow the mind, body and spirit all work together to create an expansive and open heart. Or one that is shut down. The choice is ours.

As I have worked to move forward in life, I have struggled to understand why my heart keeps returning to that relationship. After months of no contact, my heart still feels the love. Clarity arrived as I finally realized that seeing the light of his soul changed my life for the better. Knowing the light of another’s heart was profound and I’ll not settle for anything less in relationship. But I also understand that maintaing that kind of openness takes a lot of work. And it begins with me. To find others whose hearts are open requires that mine be open. And it requires that I am willing to be vulnerable.

Each of us has the capacity to allow our light to shine. We have choice. When we live more open to love, love becomes the reality, the expectation…the way of being. As we are grounded in love, determined to stay open, we must be disciplined for it is easy to close down, to hide. But love is what will sustain us..not our fears or our anger. Love generates both urgency and patience. As we intend to live love, love changes our reality.

I have tried anger and frustration and impatience. I have tried to force change…but none of that ever works. Only through softening…and opening…and embracing light and love has my life shifted, has my vision cleared.

Love has known me. Light of another’s soul has touched me. That isn’t something I want to forget…ever. This is how we are designed to live.

May we collectively shed the cloaks of anger, hatred, frustration, hurt…. the past….and be willing to show the light of the soul to all.

What Love Can Do

By Simone Lipscomb | January 29, 2014

Lately I’ve been asking the question, How can we really make a difference? Actually, for several months now I’ve been walking with this prayer in my heart and mind. I breathe it in the morning….walk with it during the day….rest my head on my pillow at night with this koan echoing through my spirit.

Documenting the Gulf Oil Spill broke my heart and mind open. It brought me to my knees in the truest sense because I saw how everything precious and sacred can be taken away by careless human acts and ongoing choices and behaviors that are centered on profit…at any cost. After struggling with emotions of anger, grief, frustration, helplessness and more I connected with Joanna Macy‘s work and traveled to spend a week with her and others committed to creating positive change in our world. Without hesitation I can say that the week spent in Massachusetts helped me climb out of the emotional hole that I fell into witnessing first hand the oil spill.

Once among the living, however, my sense of direction faded. I realized I could no longer approach my work with anger or frustration because what I felt so strongly was love…for the planet, for creatures, for humans. I couldn’t bombard people with the horrific images that had filled my nightmares any longer. I didn’t want to be in denial about what is happening in our world but focusing on the terrible seemed only to perpetuate more of it. I felt that people were grieving the destruction of life, even if they weren’t consciously aware of it. And perhaps seeing beauty would inspire them to engage, encourage them to care a little more.

The theme of beauty and more specifically, focusing on beauty, became the answer I began to hear each time I asked the question, What can I do to make a difference? Yet that answer didn’t give me complete satisfaction or a sense of true direction. It was a start though.

Many more months have passed and the question still pulls me to deeper understanding. It seems quite simple but how difficult it can be to live the answer I received: Love. Love is the answer I’ve been hearing lately.

It sounds cliche. It sounds so ’60’s. Yet as I’ve explored and read….listened deeply to my core…it’s that simple.

Standing in love doesn’t mean we are powerless or squishy. Sometimes love looks powerful and strong. Other times it is enfolding, soft. It seems we are at a point of powerful change in our world. It takes radical courage to live from Love for most of what is modeled in our world is power-over, squishing the competition, winning at any cost….more…more…more. To observe this way of being and step away from it, to stand centered in love and compassion is radical. And yet history has proven that power for power’s sake never works.

In some philosophies there is a diagram that is helpful. In it two lines intersect. One runs up and down and is considered to represent Spirit. The other crosses it and is representative of the physical path. In the center, at the intersection where Spirit and physical meet, is the point of becoming. It’s the place where we can, in a physical experience, balance our life with the qualities of Spirit, of Love.

Wendell Berry states, “Love isn’t a feeling. It’s a practice.” He also said, “What leads to peace is not violence but peaceableness.” This leads me to conclude that what leads to love isn’t hate…it’s love.

If we really want to change the world for the better, our first task then is to clear all obstacles within ourselves that keep us from truly knowing love. This means letting go of judgment of self and others, letting go of hate of self and others. Selfishness, ego…all must go as we open our hearts to the absolute power of love. When we do this, when we have such radical courage, we will see what love can do.