A Call for Valentine’s Day

In my younger years, I didn't love Valentine's Day (pun intended). I didn't like it because I thought it was about romantic love. So, coupled or not, it was a drag. When I was single, it was a reminder that I was taskless on this day when everyone seemed busy in love. When I was in a relationship, pressure, expectations and the feeling that something more should be happening spurred me to shake my fist at that little blind devil Cupid. I became one of those toughies who refuses to acknowledge Valentine's Day at all. Over the past few years, things shifted. I started to see Valentine's Day for what it is - a day about love - any kind of love, toward anyone. Krishnamurti defined love by what it is not - it is not possession, sentimentality, jealousy or sympathy. It dwells only where there is respect, mercy and forgiveness, but it is not those things, either. Once the mind is freed of all misperceptions of love, the heart glows with it. The more I meditate, the more I see it (though I have a ways to go). There is love everywhere. Everywhere. Here's your call. Get out there this Valentine's Day and love. How? Find a happy action: hand out something fun, provide a tiny service for someone, donate to a food bank (they need help this time of year), invite your coworkers to sit with you at lunch - I'm sure you can think of something. The yoga part of the assignment: when you wish others a Happy Valentine's Day and when you are kind to everyone you meet, imagine the mind's ideas of love scurrying for cover as you watch the heart shift into low and do what it's meant to do.