“Few things limit us more profoundly than our own beliefs about what we deserve, and few things liberate us more powerfully than daring to broaden our locus of possibility and self-permission for happiness. The stories we tell ourselves about what we are worthy or unworthy of — from the small luxuries of naps and watermelon to the grandest luxury of a passionate creative calling or a large and possible love — are the stories that shape our lives.” Maria Popova

In opening our minds to the greatest possibilities for ourselves, surely love is the greatest possibility we could hope for. Yes there are some phenomenal things we can experience in this world, but all except love are surely fleeting, or at best diminishing in value?

One thing I don’t know is what it really looks like to attain love. Does love require a relationship with another person, as it is assumed in the Western world? Or do we have to let go of our romantic ideals and accept that true love is something we can only experience within ourselves?

Anthony De Mello tells us that “contrary to what your culture and religion have taught you, nothing—but absolutely nothing of the world—can make you happy. The moment you see that, you will stop moving from one job to another, one friend or lover to another, one place, one spiritual technique, one guru to another. None of these things can give you a single minute of happiness. They can only offer you a temporary thrill, a pleasure, that initially grows in intensity then turns into pain if you lose them and boredom if you keep them.” On the face of it, De Mello makes sense; his words seem rational. But when we think about lived experience, both our own and that which we observe of others around us, there does seem to be evidence that worldly pursuits can in fact, bring us deep and lasting happiness.

David Whyte’s poem, The Truelove, feels much more intuitive to those of us that have known love to any degree – whether we have indeed loved another (whatever that means to us), whether we have dared to dream of the possibility of great love, or whether we have simply engaged with the concept of love, only to flee in fear at the perceived risk and danger involved.

The Truelove

There is a faith in loving fiercely
the one who is rightfully yours,
especially if you have
waited years and especially
if part of you never believed
you could deserve this
loved and beckoning hand
held out to you this way.

I am thinking of faith now
and the testaments of loneliness
and what we feel we are
worthy of in this world.

Years ago in the Hebrides,
I remember an old man
who walked every morning
on the grey stones
to the shore of baying seals,
who would press his hat
to his chest in the blustering
salt wind and say his prayer
to the turbulent Jesus
hidden in the water,

and I think of the story
of the storm and everyone
waking and seeing
the distant
yet familiar figure
far across the water
calling to them

and how we are all
preparing for that
abrupt waking,
and that calling,
and that moment
we have to say yes,
except it will
not come so grandly
so Biblically
but more subtly
and intimately in the face
of the one you know
you have to love

so that when
we finally step out of the boat
toward them, we find
everything holds
us, and everything confirms
our courage, and if you wanted
to drown you could,
but you don’t
because finally
after all this struggle
and all these years
you simply don’t want to
any more
you’ve simply had enough
of drowning
and you want to live and you
want to love and you will
walk across any territory
and any darkness
however fluid and however
dangerous to take the
one hand you know
belongs in yours.

When he refers to ‘the one who is rightfully yours’ and to ‘the one hand you know belongs in yours’ I’m not sure whether Whyte is referring to that of a person, or whether these are metaphors representing one of many possibilities. Perhaps my confusion is evidence of the fact that I do not know love; as I believed I did. I can’t conceptualise just one hand that belongs in mine, or one that is ‘rightfully’ mine. Rather, it feels to me like we all belong together through a network of joined hands, those closest to us representing those with whom we have the closest bonds. Whilst those furthest from us, so far away in fact, that we cannot see or hear them, are still connected to us in some way, if for no reason other than our shared humanity. That being said, I would love to believe, despite the fragility of human life, and the immense risk we take when we love, that Whyte is accurately describing the experience of a different kind of love. A love that is reserved for just one; the one whose hand we instinctively know belongs in ours.