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Concentric Circles of Love
by Beca Lewis © 1/2008

The great artist Van Gogh said to his brother, “ I tell you, the more I think, the more I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.”

I wonder if he would mind if I took away the word “people” so that it would simply end with the word “love.”

Wouldn’t this expand the picture?  Instead of thinking that we can only love those people, places and things that look exactly like us, we could expand the idea of love to include everyone and everything.

On our dining table is a dish with rocks and water in it. Sitting on top of those rocks and water are some blooming narcissus bulbs.  Every time I look at them I marvel at their beauty and their promise that spring isn’t that far away. 

It is a concentric circle of love.

The dish by itself would have been empty and fairly boring. Filled with rocks and water, it still would have not been much to look at.  Add the bulbs to the dish, rocks, and water and they now all have a purpose.  At the same time, without the rocks, water, and dish the bulbs would not be blooming.

And that concentric circle of love expands.  As we see the flowers we are filled with joy at their beauty and we pass on those lovely spring feelings to each other and then to another, and another and another.

We are all like a stone thrown into the water, concentric circles expanding to include and touch everything.

Recently I saw a video of a crow that loved and cared for a kitten who could have died without him. And the kitten reciprocated by loving him back.  This love continued even after the kitten turned into a cat and found a home.  Each morning the crow waited for him by the door until he came out to play.

What if the crow would have looked at the kitten and thought, “He doesn’t look like me and besides I am supposed to use him for food.”  Instead, he showed love and got love back, and that shared love has been a continuing expanding circle to everyone who sees and hears about it.

For Christmas Del gave me a whole pack of DVD’s that he called “happy movies” because each of them ends with love.  One of those movies is called “Stardust.” In this movie the heroine shows the hero that true love does not need proof of its love. It doesn’t required sacrifice and sorrow. It doesn’t love for prestige. As they live this truth, the world they find themselves in transforms.

In another movie “Enchanted” the heroine is so infused with love that her point of view expands into and through everyone and everything she meets. She shifts the world that she was un-lovingly thrown into. Without blame, and by being only love, she too transforms that world around her.

Concentric circles of love.  We are all at the center and the cause of concentric circles. 

We get to choose whether that circle will be one of love or of the multitude of other names for what is not love. The opposite of love hides behind words like sorrow, blame, despair, upset, anger, or revenge, but it is always just the opposite of love, and only has power because we choose it instead of love. That concentric circle does not end well – for anyone.

In order to be a concentric circle of love we have to start with the love of ourselves. Starting there it is easy to be a stone of love that begins the circle of love that expands to transform the world.

Like the crow that loved the kitten, we have to begin by being happy with ourselves, content with who we are. We love by not looking at what we don’t have (how does a crow feed or hug a kitten), but what we do have. We have the capacity to love because that is the essence of our being.

None of us can do anything alone. Like the flowers in the dish we must have each other’s support, and encouragement. Without each other we will feel empty and unfulfilled.  Try as we might we cannot stop the concentric circle that extends from what we do and say. It is our choice whether we expand love, or the opposite of love.

As we choose love that concentric circle will bring into each of our lives the fullness of what it means to love and be loved and together we can enjoy the sweet fragrance of the unique blooms called us.

It doesn’t matter if we are the cat or the crow. The crow had to give love to something he wasn’t supposed to love, and in return the cat had to accept love from something he wasn’t supposed to trust. 

If they can do it, we can too!  Like the women in “Enchanted” and “Stardust” we can shift the world we were “sent to” into the world we know it really is, love. 

Shifting With You!

PS:
Of course I must add here, because otherwise you might not know, that if you are a woman who would like to be part of a like-minded group with the purpose of loving yourself and expanding that circle to others, we have a group of those women waiting for you.  Will you join us? Click Here To See

PPS;
Here's the link to that video! Click Here

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*Article by Beca Lewis, MA, CFP and author of Living in Grace: The Shift to Spiritual Perception. Visit http://www.theshift.com/ez.html for content on The Shift®. Reprint permission granted with this footer included.

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