Coming off a three-week-long Jewish holiday season that crescendoed with the idea of unity, love, and Oneness and segues into beginning again, has given me pause. I do so love a happy and purposeful beginning. If we are looking at cycles of life, then beginnings also remind us of endings that brought us around. Thoughts and feelings and memories of loved ones permeate this day and this week for my family and me.
This was touched on in my book, “Segue Facing Loss and Life With Love”.
“PART FIVE
LOVED ONES
PROLOGUE
They are the ones who launch us, sustain us, ground us and reel us back to shore. You can’t have too many, and most of us have only a few.
In my saddest of times, I thought myself unlovable. As my mind cleared, I realized unloved is different from unlovable. As my heart opened, I came to appreciate my loved ones all the more, seeing them as my treasures and knowing being someone’s loved one is my honor.
As my life moves along, I see love as the energy necessary for a life worth living and as the energy that unites us.
We are taught to love others as ourselves. In the beginning, we think of the separation from others and might consider that to be magnanimous. Later, it dawns on us, loving others as ourselves means we must first love ourselves. Later still, the concept of Oneness starts to permeate, and we get to the conclusion Oneness and Love are interchangeable. At our essence, we are one; at our essence, we are love.”
The idea continues in Chapter Ten, “Gentle Family” where it is realized the words gentle and family once meant the same.
“I thought about how I could and should place gently before all I do. Keep ‘gen’/’gent’ at the beginning. How all of humanity is a family and that all my interactions with others could and should begin with gentleness. Make family and gentle interchangeable. See all people as family.”
Our loved ones are either family or friends, and in the broader sense everyone is family. There’s balance of course. In this world of family and friends we also have our foes. I thought about that the other day and came upon a quote, attributed to Abraham Lincoln, among others. Here is a paraphrase:
“A good way to destroy our enemies is to make them our friends.”
Bringing us around again to love and Oneness.
“There’s an energy that unites us all. That energy is love. We are stronger together, although we can never be truly apart, but we can be in conflict, which makes us think we are.
Peace provides our Wholeness, and Love sustains our Oneness.”
- “Segue Facing Loss and Life With Love”
May we have a gentle year filled with the pleasure that comes from loved ones, and may we peacefully and successfully make our enemies into friends.
With love,
Rachel Stein
(The Beginning.)
Hi there! Thank you for stopping by and reading my posts.
Here’s a link to my book: segue, FACING LOSS AND LIFE WITH LOVE.
Click on the link below and order your copy today.
Here’s to Beautiful Segues.
You write with so much love, I love it.
Thank you, Sylvia.
As always, your loving words are encouraging and appreciated.
🌺