True Love Knows No Impediment

Today, I beheld a very clear vision and I felt the truth of all that my heart spoke to me.  Life taught me a lesson that I needed to learn and life willed me to finally see the plain and simple truth before my eyes.  For a brief moment in time, as I sat on the beach surrounded by the beauty of nature, the universe spoke to me through my heart, and it talked to me of love.

This afternoon after work, I cycled down to the beach to swim and bathe in the ocean, to sit on the sand, relax, and to read my book.  As I always do, I began to people watch, as it's a favourite pastime of mine, and I have discovered that within the actions and facial expressions of others, you can learn much about life and you are able to see your own reflection.  I looked on as a couple walking together along the beach approached and one of the photographers from the resort began to snap pictures of them.  The photographer asked them to strike various poses and to take up different positions, such as standing next to each other, laying side-by-side on the sand, kneeling in front of each other and other such stances.  I looked on and as I did, I could see that this couple were in love, there could be no denying it, it was plain to see.

Every look and every gesture that they gave each other spoke of the love that they held for each other.  It was completely obvious to any observer, it could not be failed to be seen.  Here were two people, completely at ease with each other, enjoying the company of each other, having fun together, revelling in the attention, and tied together through the bond of mutual love.  I've seen couples like this before, so why did this particular couple strike me so significantly?  These two people were separated not only by gender, but by race and by age also.

Love had found a way to flourish despite, what may have been to many others, obstacles or barriers to love.  Here, on the beach, it was easy to see how love had triumphed and had overcome any adversity that may have hindered its growth.  It was in watching these two people that I was struck so plainly by the simple truth of what I was seeing: true love can know no impediment.  If the feelings of love are genuine between two people, then there is nothing that can stop it, there is nothing that can break it, there is nothing that can defeat it.  Love is an all conquering emotion.  Love is the greatest sensation that humans can feel.  Love is the supreme state.  When it is true, nothing in this universe can destroy it.  Love transcends time and love transcends space, as it stretches out across the universe undimmed.

Before today, I have always believed in the power of love, what I saw today showed me something else.  It demonstrated to me that when love knocks on your door, there is nothing that can stand in its way.  I thought I already knew that, but today, I saw it to be the truth and I knew it from the depths of my soul.  As I type this, I have just had another thought, one that is frightening.  If true love knows no impediment, then is it possible that I have never truly been in love?  Is it possible that the love that I felt before was not true love, but a poor imitation?  Perhaps not.  I believe that my past loves were indeed love from my side, but perhaps the love from the other person was not as true as it should have been.

Today I was taught another lesson of life, another lesson on love.  I hope one day to be able to share those lessons with the soul of another, who will walk my path at my side.  Until that day, I will go on learning so that when the time comes, I am ready and I will not spurn nor waste my opportunity.  The chances of love are like the seeds blowing in the wind.  I am going to reach out my hand and see if I cannot grab one, for I only need one chance to find my true home, my true love.

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Blond Hair And Board Shorts

A man with shaggy, blond, unkempt, sun bleached hair, who is wearing nothing other than a pair of board shorts, is walking barefoot along the sand of a tropical, palm tree lined beach.  He walks close to the waters edge, so that each time a wave breaks and pushes up the beach, the water covers his feet before once more receding.  Running around the man, bounding into the water, running back to the sand, barking with fun, is an equally scruffy looking dog.  On the faces of both, to be seen clearly by any casual observer, is written joy and contentment with life.

It is a summer's day in England. An adolescent boy sits on the pebbles of the beach and watches the waves lapping at the shore.  The boy has just been swimming and beads of water run from his hair, over his shoulders and down his back, but he does not care.  The sun is warming and he knows that he will soon be dry.  He stares out across the calm and flat ocean, that is constantly changing shape, undulating with small movements, as each swell attempts to break the calmness but lack the power to do so, dying on the pebbles of the beach as if collapsing, exhausted, over the finish line.  The boy's mind begins to drift, to wander and he imagines where his life will lead him and what it is that life has in store for him.

The winds of the dry season blow, lifting sand from the beach, stirring up the dust of the roads, across the land comes the wind, dropping these tiny particles of the rocks and earth across a parched countryside, that is now into its fifth month without the rains.  Barren is the ground, brown is the grass, and withered and lifeless are the trees that the wind passes over.  The wind brings no cooling relief from the heat of the sun, the air it brings is stifling and serves only to increase the temperature, like a breeze that fans the smouldering embers of a fire.  On the beach, barefooted, blond haired and wearing only a pair of board shorts, approaches a lone figure.  At times he gazes out across the ocean, he stares up at the clouds, sometimes marvelling at the exquisite formations, sometimes he sees in a cloud the shape of an animal, and he watches mesmerised as a pod of pelicans launch themselves from the surface of the water, and take to the air in flight.  The man might walk alone but he is not lonely.  He smiles and laughs to himself often and people look at him and think that perhaps he has been touched by the hand of madness.  And they would be right.  This man has been touched by the madness that comes of having pursued a childish dream and of turning that dream into a waking reality.  This man walks in the knowledge that life rewards those that seek out the truth for themselves and discover their one true path.  It was insanity that drove him onwards and allowed him to find the light that was within.

I had a dream once and I dismissed it.  At the beach in England, during the summer months, my heart was always so full of joy, content and happy.  I could not think of anything else that would make me more fulfilled than to live by a tropical beach.  I dismissed this dream because I thought it was stupid, I believed it was unachievable, but more than this, I thought that it was not what I was supposed to do with my life.  For me, life was all about finding a job, earning enough money to support myself, leaving home, raising my own family.  I managed the first three of those, the last eludes me still.  Those were the things expected of me.  Everything else I was told, was foolhardy and stupid.  When I had the vision of the beach, I would say to myself it was impossible.  I would ask myself what would I do there?  How would I live?  How would I support myself?  I have a logical brain and because of this, I could see no sense in my dream, and so I dismissed it as the foolish thought of youth.   

However, what I had not counted on, was that this dream was so deeply rooted in the core of my being, that my heart never let it go.  From my teenage years onwards, everything that I have ever done, was completed with the ultimate goal of achieving my dream.  I was not consciously aware of this.  Some other power drove me in that direction and I subconsciously made the decisions that led me there.  Some how, I ended up where I always wanted to be.  The journey was not straightforward.  In fact, I could not have taken a more convoluted and twisted road if I had tried.  And it is this fact that brings me great joy and hope in my life.

I did not set out for my life to be the way it is.  So much happened by chance and opportunity.  Everyone has those same chances in their lives.  I am no more unique or blessed than any one else.  What this tells me, is that if you have something inside of you that holds deep meaning for your life, then there is a power that is going to steer you towards it, whether you are conscious of it or not, and no matter the decisions that you take.  That power could be given many names but I like to think of it as simply, love.  If you believe in love, then you can achieve anything.  If you believe in love, then you can accomplish your dreams.  Love is the force that drives life.  And it is life that brings love.  The eternal cycle will always go on until the ending of the universe.

You have the power to accomplish your dreams.  All that you need can be found within.  Search your heart,  listen to its voice and act on what it tells you.  Create the life that you want, not the life that you think you should have.  Those who dream are not fools, but those who dream and do not act are the foolish.

Dream.  Dare.  Walk.  Love.  Light.

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