My first love, according to my father, were my hands. He and my mother separated the year I was born, but in those first few months of my life he said I spent hours lying on my back in the crib, staring at each of my hands as I opened and closed them over and over in front of my wide eyes.
My second love was my sister, or perhaps I was her first love. The moment I came home from the hospital she didn’t leave my side. Three years older and already too clumsy for a crib, she managed to climb into mine everyday and just hold me like I was her personal doll.
Then a few years later our babysitter woke us up in the middle of the night and brought us to the back porch. I saw the sky turn every shade of pink as it played off the streaks of white clouds and turned the trees from black back to their rightful shades of green. It was my first dawn, and from that moment I fell in love with the world.
In a perfect unravelling, our love stories would unfold just like that – starting with a solid footing in self love, providing the roots for healthy relational love and branching out to the space beyond ourselves – into the world, the whole of humanity and even further into the universal and spiritual realms.
A year before I launched RedFlag.org, I read Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography “My Experiments With Truth”. I learned the intimate story of Gandhi’s journeys through self love, relational love with his family, and his deep love of humanity. He had to go through many trials and encounters with the authentic and inauthentic before recognizing the difference between the two.
One story in particular stands out. Gandhi loved his mother deeply and was raised in a traditional Hindu household that observed vegetarianism. When he left India for England’s colder climates to study law, he was warned by many that he would not survive the winters without eating meat. Despite these fears Gandhi made a promise to his mother that he would not stray from their shared value. Yet, once he arrived in England (in 1888) he found himself giving into curiosity and fear and ate meat. The regret was an instant recognition for him of a violation of truth and love. From then on he never ate meat again. Shortly thereafter he discovered the London Vegetarian Society and joined their movement.
As I prepared for the launch of the “Love Issue” a young woman asked me, “What are your thoughts on love?” I had been researching the great voices on love both past and present, yet hadn’t actually articulated my own beliefs. We were alone and her eyes were so open and non-judgmental that I found myself telling her my truth. A truth I didn’t even know myself.
“I believe to be loved you must be truly loveable. Love is something you need to earn and something you need to learn. It’s a state you reach, like the summit of a tall peak, but not just any peak – the tallest peak. And like Everest, only the most fearless can ever get there. To be honest love gives me a lot of anxiety.”
When I finished her eyes were much wider and filled with tears. “My word,” she said, “that’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard.”
I knew when she finished speaking that everything I said was a lie – a lie I truly believed – and that her eyes staring at me with so much compassion and acceptance was the proof that love is generously and patiently always there waiting to surrender itself to us without any struggle.
This is our focus for Issue Number 9 : Love. We are here to bust the lies we tell ourselves about love and the illusions we create that block love. With our “Experiments With Love” campaign, like Gandhi’s “Experiments With Truth”, we will fumble through the dark together and shed light on all the facets of love as it touches our hearts in so many different ways each day. In this way we will learn about love from each other and allow ourselves to love more deeply than we’ve ever loved before – without struggle.
To join the movement add the hashtag #Experimentswithlove to your photos on Instagram or post your love stories directly to our Facebook page.
With Love to All,
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Nicole Davis
Founder, RedFlag.org
*Meet Me On The Mountain…image by Zach Allia @Zachallia