love Archives - Page 19 of 21 -

Whole Lot A Shakin’

By Simone Lipscomb | August 6, 2013

I was kneeling in the lush grass, removing my camera from the black leather bag when the minister said, “Let’s begin the rehearsal with a moment of prayer.” Since I was already kneeling I decided to remain on my knees and lift up my own prayers as mother-of-the-bride. It wasn’t mere chance that found me connected to the Earth Mother as we gathered to walk through the ceremony that would join my daughter and her fiancé as life parters…as wife and husband. I felt the strength of the Great Mother flow through me and surround Emily and Kevin and all who gathered that afternoon in the beauty of Dow Gardens. It was a continuation of an already powerful day.

Earlier that morning, while participating in a Pure Barre class with Em, my legs were shaking from fatigue (that’s what’s supposed to happen….but it’s quite challenging). As my knees were literally knocking together from the chair position I held on tip-toes at the barre, I wasn’t sure I would be able to hold the pose. The instructor reminded us that when our muscles shake it means they are changing. The truth of her statement struck a very deep chord within me that brought tears to my eyes.

The process of personal change and growth is far from easy. In fact, it’s the most difficult commitment anyone can make. It demands nothing less that complete willingness to look within at our behaviors and heal them so that we can move into a clearer expression of our true nature, our higher selves. This can generate a lot of fear and I remember many times when fear gripped me until I shook.

If you’re shaking you’re changing. Physically…emotionally….mentally…spiritually. That’s very reassuring…movement is a sign that progress is occurring.

Never would I have imagined that my daughter’s wedding could bring up so much emotion. Tender feelings of sacred love between mother and child, grief from choices made decades ago, joy for the love she has found, and a feeling of closing a huge chapter of growth in life so that I can move forward. Forgiving myself, forgiving others and celebrating the potential that life promises with an open heart.

Love does that. It shakes us to our core when we open ourselves to it. True love rips us open and our willingness to stay with the shaking, the terror of opening ourselves so widely that we heal is an act of courage. This love is found in all interpersonal relationships. Feeling such profound and vast love for my daughter has transformed me….and will continue to in the years ahead.

A Course in Miracles teaches this foundational truth: What is not love is fear. Twenty-eight years after first reading that statement it continues to deepen in meaning for me. Practicing this one, simple truth is worthy of a lifetime of work and dedication.

The beauty of Emily and Kevin’s ceremony reverberates within my mind and heart today as I allow space to feel the shift within myself and between us. There was a whole lot a shakin’ goin’ on leading up to and during the past week, especially at the Pure Barre classes I took. Shaking physically opened up emotional pathways that unlocked freedom to love more deeply.

And perhaps the most wonderful thing of all is I didn’t lose my daughter. I truly gained a son.

A Precious Gift

By Simone Lipscomb | July 28, 2013

1985....Emily loved the water from the beginning. Wonder why....ha! — 1985….Emily loved the water from the beginning. Wonder why….ha!

In less than a week now my daughter will be married.

I have to give that sentence room to breathe. She and Kevin have been together for years but very soon we will be coming together to celebrate their lives and their decision to create a life together. I couldn’t be happier that Kevin is her chosen life partner.

Emily was born at noon on a Monday after twelve hours of labor. As I held her, moments after she was born, I recognized the strong feeling of love that poured through me. Life that had grown within my body was now present and about to be disconnected when the cord that joined us was severed.

But is a mother ever really separated from her child?

When I was pregnant I played piano to Emily and she would kick. I continued the practice after she arrived.... — When I was pregnant I played piano to Emily and she would kick. I continued the practice after she arrived….

Whispers of each other’s heartbeat reverberates through the soul as mother and child journey through life. Sometimes apart physically, yet forever joined by blood….and something more. I remember hearing Billy Ocean’s song, Suddenly, while I was in the hospital. “This love is everlasting. Life has new meaning to me, there is beauty up above and things we never take notice of. You wake up and suddenly you’re in love.” Holding her in my arms for the first time I knew that I had never really felt love before meeting her.

The birth of my daughter catapulted me onto a path of growth. It wasn’t pretty–this clawing and sweating journey to wholeness. No. Not pretty at all. I screwed up as a mother, as a wife and made more mistakes than I ever want to admit to myself, much less publicly confess to, yet my love for Emily never wavered. I credit my precious baby girl as being the catalyst that directed me to my spiritual path.

Never the smothering mother type, I was able to give my daughter space in which to grow into her potential without undue, un-requested influence from me. I laughingly say I studied counseling in graduate school so I could help her grow up without squashing her spirit.

She was a strong-willed, precocious kid but in a most charming way. Adventuresome, self-disciplined, driven to do whatever it took to achieve her goals from two to twenty-eight….this is my daughter. Not once did I have to nag her about her school work. The kindergarten teacher’s only complaint was that Emily completed her work too quickly. And maybe that she talked too much. Boredom was her biggest challenge. (Note to Kevin…boredom was her biggest challenge).

When we went wedding dress shopping in November with Kevin’s mom, my mom, and my niece (her maid of honor) I was totally shocked that I started crying when we walked into the bridal shop. Me? Cry about Emily getting married? I excused myself to the restroom and gathered my emotions into a tidy basket of surprise and the rest of the day went wonderfully. So even though she has been on her own for several years and she and Kevin have already established a loving home together, there is still something about the celebration with 130 of their closest relatives and friends that makes this a big deal…besides the crowd of well-wishers.

In a couple days I fly to their home to help in the last minute preparations. I have the dress and high-heels, my camera and yes, I purchased waterproof mascara.

A child is a most precious gift. Thank you Emily for being my daughter. You taught me how to love.

The Good Stuff Moves Closer

By Simone Lipscomb | July 7, 2013

The past three weeks have been incredibly difficult but I’m not whining. Simply stating a fact. The frustration has been centered around my work. Some days I have considered drawing a bullseye on the wall to give a target for head-banging.

Since I began documenting the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill over three years ago, I have felt pressure to work hard to make a difference in the world. That’s always been my intention but since witnessing the devastating effects on wildlife and human life, I have been almost frantic to help raise awareness of what humans are doing to the planet.

This year I’ve been feeling the importance of documenting nature’s beauty as a way to increase passion and concern but with the same push–the panic thought that time is short, we are losing this beauty!

I’ve felt stuck lately…more than three weeks of stuck-ness. Months of it. I feel my work…the images and words….exist in a small circle of people. Appreciative and grateful people…but I’ve wondered if what I’m doing makes a difference. And the more I did, the more it felt as if I were treading ‘water’ in mud.

Two weeks ago I decided to let go and see what happened. This coincided with a question posed to me.

Each morning I light a candle, do a dedication and say a prayer. One day I specifically said, “Would you PLEASE show me what you want me to do?” Immediately and with a rush of force I heard, “What do YOU want to do?”

I stood astounded as my inner voice faded. Oh…so if I’m doing what I enjoy, it will be my best and most creative work and therefore fulfill my purpose. From that day on I have asked myself, “What do I want to do?” All through the day my work unfolds and when I focus on my website or do graphic design, or go on photography shoots it is effortless. It flows.

For the first time in many, many years I’m learning to relax and rest. When I work now it comes from my heart, not from a mental effort to push forward, to do, to make a difference, to work, work, work….because I have believed that it’s not okay to take up space unless I’m contributing. My mind loves to create things for me to do to justify my existence. But the fact is, that’s really not how it works. The more pressure I apply, the less I felt truly free to create my life’s work.

As I have stopped pushing and started breathing….living, the joy has returned. My work flows when I am in a creative mood and without the heavy hand I was using on myself, I feel lighter and more at peace than I have been since the oil spill occurred.

Joy, pleasure, happiness felt foreign to me since witnessing the spill and its effects. Slowly, I’m freeing myself from the self-imposed prison of my inner task master. As I do this the good stuff moves closer….I can FEEL it! My body vibrates with the goodness that has been waiting just out of reach. All it needed was a receptive spirit.

I am grateful.

Ocean of Love

By Simone Lipscomb | April 23, 2013

From a place of deep relaxation a vision emerged. I was in a vast Ocean, deep indigo in color and filled with beautiful creatures. A huge humpback whale echo-located me and swam very close. Harpoons with explosives sought him and massive nets and I urged him to swim away and escape. The ship came closer and closer and as his mate I urged him to dive deep. He constantly put himself in harm’s way to help others. In a frenzy, I swam trying to push his massive body down, deep into the blue depths. He sang to me and in pictures I saw his body taken into the ship that hunted him and watched as it took him apart, piece by piece. The thought came….people will pick his bones clean until there is nothing left.

And with one last surge of energy, I rammed him as the ship hit me. He was free but I was broken.

My whale body sank into the Void yet my consciousness remained. In that moment I knew that the essence of who I am lived on. It was love that drew me to him and love that kept me there. It was love that blocked the ship and kept it from breaking him.

I heard whale song and ocean sounds and felt total peace. Complete peace. As I opened myself to love, all fear disappeared.

And I knew that love is everything, in everything and available in endless supply. And because of this, I have everything I need. This is an abundant world of love.

My gigantic whale heart could hold love in unimaginable quantities and be a channel for it….for life force that is, in essence, love. What keeps us from swimming in this endless supply of love with conscious awareness? Are we so afraid of losing our ‘self’ or ego that we hold back and refuse to let the fires of love consume us, transform us?

I drifted back from this place of surrender, this place of unlimited abundant love, into my human form. With much to ponder I spent time in silence, listening and writing.

Love is like an ocean of vast immensity and we are like fish swimming in this limitless ocean begging for water. We forget we already have love and therefore, everything we will ever need.

As I breathe in, I breathe in love. It is the fabric of this physical world. The life force that holds it all together.

Nobody can withhold love from me because to receive love is as simple as inhaling. Nobody is gatekeeper for love coming to me except me.

Our minds create separation from Source…God…Great Spirit. Our thoughts create this feeling of aloneness. How could we ever be alone or separate from the Universe, from God, when we are surrounded by It? Are a part of It?

“Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.” I Corinthians 7.

My daughter Emily in the Caribbean waters of Bonaire

“Love one another, but make not a bond of love: Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls….when love beckons to you, follow him, though his ways are hard and steep…For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you….Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself. He threshes you to make you naked. He sifts you to free you from your husks. He grinds you to whiteness. He kneads you until you are pliant; And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast. All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart……Love possesses not nor would it be possessed; For love is sufficient unto love….But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully.” Kahlil Gibran

This passage from The Prophet narrates the journey the soul takes in an effort to find love…looking for it in others, in things, in titles, letting ego define it. Ultimately, finding love requires sacrifice of the ego, a laying down of limits and limitations. And the realization that it is what created us, sustains us and breathes through us.

*Photo by Ed Jackson of me and my buddy in a cave, Akumal, Mexico*

Love is as close as the air we breathe, as we open to receive. We live in an ocean of love.

Love’s Grooves

By Simone Lipscomb | April 8, 2013

Each morning, as I walk my SUP board to the small river beach, I greet a beautiful, old cedar tree that stands on the bank. Its gnarled trunk is scarred with places where limbs used to be and the deep fissures in the bark invite my fingers to explore them and touch the texture with gentle regard.

This morning after paddling I walked my board up the trail and felt a gentle nudge from the grandmother tree to come back and visit. After settling my board on the grass, I returned and placed my hands on the trunk and looked up. What a massive tree, soaring far into the sky. Usually I see only the section I pass by, rarely stopping to notice the entirety of the tree.

We do that to ourselves and others. We focus on one small part of ourselves…normally some behavior or personality flaw we don’t particularly like…and obsess about that. Or with other humans we see something we don’t like and dismiss the person without taking time to view the whole person and their many good qualities.

If I only looked superficially at the cedar tree I might say it has a lot of scars and bumps and imperfections. But when I step back and gaze at its entirety I see such magnificent beauty and oddly enough, it is the flaws make it beautiful.

In my first book, Sharks On My Fin Tips, I wrote a story about my grandfather and the depth of love’s grooves worn into our hearts by those we love. In taking a moment to visit the tree today I thought of that quote. People, wildlife, oceans, rivers, bays…all the things I have loved in my life have made an impression on me. There may be scars but mostly the memory of interacting with loved ones–people and animals–and wild animals and places has worn beautiful groves into my heart, that will remain forever.

Like the cedar tree’s beauty, our beauty comes not from perfection but from the imperfections we grow through and overcome and the impression love makes on our hearts as we risk opening them to love others.