Roots of Love: Exploring Love Beyond Valentine’s Day

Roots of Love

It is the day after Valentine’s Day, a day of celebrating and expressing love - mostly of the romantic kind - specifically with dinner dates, flowers and chocolates or if you are really splurging, with jewelry. Those in romantic relationships either have an expectation to receive love in this form, or they experience the pressure of expressing it in this “normal” way. Cheers to the fortunate ones who triumph at executing the ritual. It certainly has its appeal as an affirmation and proclamation of love.

Valentine's Day is a fascinating idea, woven from ancient Roman rituals, early Christian martyrdom, and medieval romantic ideals. While the roots of Valentine’s Day may well be lost in time, confining our discussion and expression of love to just one day a year certainly defeats the point of love.

“To love another person is to see the face of God.” Victor Hugo

From the moment a baby enters the world, love is essential for survival. Even the most stubborn among us soften in the presence of genuine, non-judgmental love. Consider the unlikely friendships in nature—a tiger cub raised by a Golden Retriever who grows to love and protect her, or wild gorillas forming bonds with humans through kindness, remembering those gestures years later. These examples remind us that love, at its purest, is unconditional and transformative.

In human relationships, however, love often becomes entangled with expectations, demands, and the inevitable pain of broken promises, jealousy, and even violence or control. Despite these challenges, love stories continue to captivate our hearts, inspiring us to seek meaning and connection.

Love in of itself is far more expansive than the love we feel for a romantic partner - love for our parents, siblings, children, friends, pets/ animals, nature and her cycles, stories, sacred objects, places, colors, fabrics, textures, scents, tastes, words, tunes.. the list is exhaustive and yet still not quite fully encapsulating the spirit of love.

Someone once asked me, “how do you want to be loved?”

A mystic might say, “Existence is love.” A religious teacher might proclaim, “God is love.” The Buddha taught that love is a practice leading to liberation. I can see the truth in all these perspectives, yet I was left speechless… bewildered even. I did not know the answer, and it has been unfolding within me ever since.

“Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere. They’re in each other all along.” ― Rumi

Is it a feeling? Is it the chocolates, lingerie, or the flowers? Is it affection? Most ways of perceiving love are about getting something we want. What or who then is the object of our love? Is it really love? Can it just be about “getting” what we want - stuff, feeling, words, or behaviors from another? Can something so expansive get trapped in matter that must bend to our singular will?

What happens when our desires clash with the will of our beloved? And when our beloved is lost, either through death or departure, does love vanish with them? Our lived experiences tell us that love endures long after the physical presence fades.

So where does love truly reside? Is it the intention of the lover, the perception of the beloved, or the fulfillment of a desire? Is it found in wonder, in connection, in shared experiences, or in the words exchanged?

We express love in various ways, often aligning with how we wish to receive it. Yet, when our love languages differ, can the love we give still be love?

“I have found the one whom my soul loves”. Songs of Solomon 3:4

It was me all along, it was always me, after all…

After being hurt in the name of love, after loss, many of us turn to the idea of “self-love” as a remedy.

Don’t get me wrong, cultivating a healthy relationship with ourselves, and to love ourselves through life’s journey is necessary. We can’t give to others what we don't have to give, so for love to start with the self makes sense. For this to be a journey and a process is inevitable.

Yet self-love as retaliation for unmet desires from others, can easily become a defense mechanism that takes us further away from love, and being loved. We either close our hearts, untrusting others to love us secretly believing ourselves to be unlovable or, it puts us on a path of perpetual seeking, and turning others into objects of our demands. Sages in many traditions call this kind of love, “egoic love”.

“Grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive.” - Prayer of St. Francis

True love is giving generously and without expectations or demands, it is about receiving wholeheartedly and with appreciation. Love is togetherness - in time, space and beyond, a choice of commitment to reciprocity, it is not transactional nor does it come with a fine print full of terms and conditions. Love is about honoring the choice we make to be in relation to one an other, and the choices others make while committing to consider each other in our choices without resorting to control or manipulation. Loving this way goes beyond the stuff, and self-serving desires.

We must go beyond the conditions we put on our loved ones to satisfy needs we equate to love. We must go beyond weaponizing “love” for our own wanting and desires. To love is to bless the ones who hurt us because we can see their pain. It is not about being a doormat, but rather holding ourselves with as much regard for our own humanity as the humanity of the ones we love, knowing we may all fail at it in moments, but remaining committed to striving for the highest love we can muster.

“This is a subtle truth: Whatever you love, you are.” – Rumi

We must become love. When our beloved is hurting, we hold space for them; when they celebrate, we rejoice wholeheartedly. We offer support when they are weak, vision when they lose their way, and the strength to let go when freedom calls. In every shared moment of life’s journey, love is our guiding force.

Let’s be love.