I will NEVER starve

There are few things more precious in this world than watching true love blossom.  I've had the amazing opportunity to witness my sweet, younger sister find the love of her life.  As we are planning and getting ready for her wedding in a couple of weeks, I am inspired by their love, devotion and passion for one another and I can't wait to watch them exchange their vows. My sister waited, hoped, prayed for and finally met the man that "completes her".  I look forward to watching them grow old together.  I LOVE true love!

Tonight I started working on my speech for their wedding and as I was going through some of my books of poetry, I found a copy of  "The Mastery of Love".  I mentioned this incredible book on my last post.  No matter where you are in the many phases of love, this book offers timeless wisdom.  (Ashley, if you haven't found a copy yet, you can borrow mine.)

Below is the exert that I just happened to flip tonight.  

-The Magical Kitchen-

"Imagine that you have a magical kitchen in your home. In that magical kitchen, you can have any food you want from any place in the world in any quantity.  You never worry about what to eat; whatever you wish for, you have it at your table.  You are very generous with your food; you give your food unconditionally to others, not because you want something in return from them. Whoever comes to your home, you feed them just for the pleasure of sharing your food, and your house is always full of people who come to eat the food from your magical kitchen.

Then one day someone knocks at your door, and its a person with a pizza.  You open the door and the person looks at you and says, 'Hey, do you see this pizza? I'll give you this pizza if you let me control your life, just do whatever I want you to do.  You are never going to starve because I can bring pizza every day.  You just have to be good to me.'

Can you imagine your reaction?  In your kitchen you can have the same pizza-even better.  Yet this person comes to you and offers you food, if you do whatever he wants you to do. You are going to laugh and say, 'No thank you!  I don't need your food; I have plenty of food. You can come into my house and eat whatever you want, and you don't have to do anything.  Don't believe I'm going to do whatever you want me to do.  No one will manipulate me with food.'

Now imagine exactly the opposite.  Several weeks have gone by, and you haven't eaten.  You are starving, and you have no money in your pocket to buy food.  The person comes with a pizza and says, 'Hey there is food here.  You can have this food if you just do what I want you to do.'  You smell the food and you are starving.  You decide to accept the food and do what ever the person asks of you.  You eat some food, and he say, 'If you want more, you can have more, but you have to keep doing what I want you to do.'

You have food for today, but tomorrow you may not have food, so you agree to do whatever you can for food.  You become a slave because of food, because you have to have it.  Then after a certain time you have doubts.  You say, 'What am I going to do without my pizza.  What if my partner decides to give the pizza to someone else---MY pizza?'

Now imagine that instead of food, we are talking about love.  You have an abundance of love in your heart.  You have love not just for yourself, but for the whole world.  You love so much that you don't need any one's love.  You share your love without condition, you don't love if.  You are a millionaire in love, and someone knocks on your door and says, 'Hey, I have love for you here.  You can have my love if you just do whatever I want you to do.'

When you are full of love, what is going to be your reaction?  You will laugh and say, 'Thank you, but I don't need your love.  I have the same love here in my heart, even bigger and better, and I share my love without condition.'

But what is going to happen if you are starving for love, if you don't have that love in your heart, and someone comes and says, 'You want a little love?  You can have my love if you just do what I want you to do.'  If you are starving for love, you can taste that love, you are going to do whatever you can for that love.  You can even be so needy that you give your soul just for a little attention.

Your heart is like that magical kitchen.  If you open your heart, you already have all the love you need.  There is no need to go around the world begging for love.  'Please someone love me.  I'm so lonely, I'm not good enough to love; I need someone to love me, to prove that I'm worthy of love.'  We have love right here inside us, but we don't see this love..............."

Don Miguel Ruiz

Sometimes we may think we are starving for a relationship, but we just need to open and share our hearts with the people in our lives.  We should try to push away the temptation to think that we don't believe in love, that love hurts, or that love isn't fair.  I almost married the pizza dude, because I was starving at that point in my life.  Luckily, with the help and support of my nearest and dearest, I realized that I will NEVER starve-and those around me will never starve either-they can always find nourishment from my magical kitchen.  Corny?-yeah, but oh so true!