Love is the Revolution
Image by Anahata Giri: My heart is tethered to the world
Love or violence - this is the precarious edge on which we teeter. Love is the revolution our world so urgently needs.
We live in devastating times. In modern culture, violence, in all its forms, is a deeply formative experience for vast numbers of individuals, whole cultures and ecosystems. This global violence includes widespread domestic violence, ecological devastation, climate crisis, social injustice, war and many forms of oppression. This web of violence is a vast and relentless assault on the web of life, and may result in the human species being added to the list of thousands of species that become extinct, mostly due to habitat destruction by humans, each year.
We - humans and the whole earth community - are teetering precariously on a threshold between violence and love. This threshold is a potent time of reckoning with the violence that is embedded in our cultures, that arises from many interlocking causes including: loss of our deep connection with the web of life; loss of soul-led culture; toxic masculinity; capitalism; patriarchy and many other causal factors. Violence is a multi-faceted personal, social, cultural and ecological phenomenon that is harming and even extinguishing many life forms. Violence as the largest threat to the ongoing survival of the beloved earth community.
The effects of violence are pervasive and profound. Violence has eroded our sense of wholeness, belonging, community, shared power and empowerment, creativity and imagination. One of the most devastating effects of violence is the desecration of love. Ask most survivors of child abuse and they will tell you that part of the legacy of that violence is a diminished sense of self-love. Violence breeds fear, shame, isolation, disempowerment, lack of self-worth, loss of self-love and even soul loss. I see that the opposite of love is not fear, but violence. Violence is any action that harms the physical, mental, emotional, psychological and spiritual wellbeing of self and another. Violence is love’s greatest predator.
This definition stands in direct opposition to the caring action that is at the heart of love. I define love not just as a feeling but as the active care of self or another. Culturally we tend to see love as simply a feeling. This feeling of love has many expressions, yet love is so much more than a feeling. If we declare our love and then our actions are uncaring, we intuitively know that the love is not true. I define love as feelings and action that nurture the physical, mental, emotional, psychological and spiritual wellbeing of self and others. Love is action. Love is only genuine if it is enacted. The threshold that humanity has arrived at urgently calls us to face not only violence but also the fierce, life-affirming power of love.
It is not fashionable to speak of love as a remedy for the global, social, political and personal violence that is so widespread. Yet, love has the potential to be the most potent form of life-affirming action on this planet. To attempt to remedy violence by meeting it with more violence is nonsensical and perpetuates deeply entrenched ancestral violence, as seen in cultures who experience, generation after generation, war and domestic violence. Love is the only thing that works against violence. Because love is action, it is innately practical and has many powerful tools. Love is the revolution that our world so desperately needs.
Love as a revolution waters the seeds of personal, spiritual, political and social transformation. Love is not simply for the personal domain. Love as ongoing, engaged and active care, is foundational to communities and cultures.
A key threshold in the journey of healing from experiences of violence is to reclaim self-love. Since love is not simply a feeling, but action, we can increase our capacity for self love by taking up the active practice of love. We can learn the skills of love and develop our capacity for love. Love is not something you are either destined to have, or not. There are many facets of love such as: self-respect, self-care and self-compassion, to name a few. We can grow our capacity for self-love by practising love in small steps. As an example, Francis Weller offers a beautiful working definition of self-compassion as the “internalised village.” This involves imagining how a dear friend (or therapist, or any kind witness) would hold space with love for your pain and emotions. The practice here is to slowly internalise the compassion you have received so that you can give it to yourself. Another example is of a man who, during his recovery from years of alcoholism, hit a rock-bottom low in his self-worth. Self-love felt impossible, so he decided to focus on something more achievable, developing self-respect. Initially he had to imagine what someone with self-respect would do, such as open the curtains, have a shower and make some breakfast. His actions of imagined self-respect eventually became embodied and slowly his self-love returned.
Another pathway to self-love is through connection with Mother Earth and the whole earth community. To spend time in a wild place considering all that Mother Earth gives us, evokes gratitude. We can be grateful for the sun, the earth, the air we breathe, the water we drink. It is astonishing that Mother Earth gives us all we need to survive and thrive. Mother Earth gives us home, safety, nourishment, food, air, shelter. She is a Mother, who gives us life and sustains us. When we feel lost or anguished, and perhaps unable to mother ourselves, Mother Earth holds us, in love, as love.
One of the most common experiences I hear from those who have an experiential encounter with their own soul, is a profound opening into the unconditional love that the soul holds for us. This experience of love at the core of one’s being is often a deeply moving, empowering and transformative experience. When we connect with this soul love, we connect with a deeper self and a deeper story for our own lives. When we receive the medicine of this soul-love, we are reminded we are worthy, we belong in the web of life and we have something unique to offer the world. Soul encounters can give us glimpses, or furnace blasts, of our unique way to love the world.
Love is a revolution. Love is a fiery truth burning in each soul, warming and strengthening each community, lighting and igniting cultures, shining with reciprocity throughout the web of life. Injustice, exploitation and violence are mostly carried out by individuals who have not healed the violence they themselves have experienced. If we can replace the cycle of global cultural violence with a culture of connection with nature and soul, we can connect with the unshakeable love that is intrinsic to our soul essence. Then may our path show us the love we always were, the love we always will be, the love we are. May our love ripen and bear fruit and transform the world.
Anahata Giri
September 2024
(1) Francis Weller, In the Absence of the Ordinary, Essays, WisdomBridge Press, 2021.