On Love & Expanding the Heart

Love is a verb. It is a practice of making our hearts larger, inviting in the miraculous, and allowing compassion, devotion, empathy, and kindness to flow through us.

Love is also something we learn. It is said that the way we speak to ourselves, our inner voice, is the voice of our parents or adults who raised and shaped us when we were young.

Undoubtedly, being raised in a family and village where we are seen, safe, loved, cherished, and supported gives us a foundation of self-worth, and a healthy ego and sets us up for a nervous system that knows safety and trusts the universe.

For many of us who did not receive this kind of safe affection and loving attention, raising our children lovingly and attentively can heal our inner child, help end ancestral patterns, and raise a new generation of well-loved, supported, healthy babes.

And yet. We all need love regardless of our background, history, or personal story. We continue to need love regardless of our age. All kinds of love, all different flavors of love, are necessary for our continued health and blossoming.

We are like living gardens — the nourishment we need is safety, love, connection, and trust. These qualities and kinds of experiences allow us to relax and allow our inner gifts to flourish within a safe and supportive container. When we taste the different flavors of love: romantic love, friendship, community, love from a mentor, love from elders, ancestors, children, animals, love of music, movement, love from the Earth, love towards a place, etc., different parts of us are watered. Other needs of ours are met. And thus, our capacity to carry these different flavors of love within us and to give them out expands. When we taste, embody, and know the different kinds of love, we become carriers of love into the world.

However, a great tragedy of the modern world is an expectation for all our needs for love to be met by humans – and, most often, one other human. It is simply an unrealistic expectation that leads to disappointment and often an unquenched thirst and longing.

One of the greatest joys of my work and life has been to share the healing herbs with students in plant spirit meditations. We drink the teas in ceremony, in a quiet, safe, and sacred space, often with relaxing music or outside with our bodies on the Earth. We open our senses and hearts to receive each plant's medicine, energy, and messages, and we just.. listen. We listen the way we would when meeting a new friend or when hearing an elder whisper profound truth into our ears. The practice is to relacx our bodies into receiving... To notice with our cells and soul, converse from our heart with the spirit of the plant that comes to meet us.

In this experience, students have experienced flavors of love they have never tasted before in their lives. Drinking Linden in meditation has allowed people to feel the love of an unconditionally loving Grandmother with sparkly, youthful eyes. The antispasmodic qualities of this relaxing, heart-opening plant allow our bodies to release tension, and we feel supported as if we were leaning against the trunk of an ancient Linden tree or held in the arms of this grandmother. Our breath and heart open, and a deep healing energy enters us. Tears often fall. We feel a coming home.

Linden Blossoms

To experience feeling so held within the body is deeply healing. It creates new pathways. We no longer are a garden that has never tasted the warmth of unconditional love, and we are now made more alive and able to recognize what safe love feels like. After drinking a tea like Linden for many days and months, this vibration becomes familiar and part of us. We embody this plant's quality and can effortlessly share this kind of love with others - human and non-human alike.

Other plants you may meditate with to experience different flavors of love are

Tulsi/Holy Basil

She often feels like the Divine Mother, bringing a vastness to the heart space and a prayerful silence to the mind.

Nettles

Nettles has a fierce, vital, green, and wild love. She reminds me of my Polish grandmothers, who love so fiercely and are so giving in their love, but also have wonderful boundaries and are certainly not soft like Linden. I have seen Nettles replenish caregivers, empaths, healers, and nurses while teaching them how to have healthy boundaries in their relationships.

Chamomile

This calming herb is a love that deeply soothes children, washing away nightmares and creating deep safety in the body and soul.

Cacao

Cacao is a love that awakens the senses, brings sensuality into the body, and brings a euphoric feeling into the blood.

Red Raspberry Leaf

This plant teaches us how to love our inner maiden, our innocent feminine; our soft and sensual parts can be in their innocence as the thriving thorny brambles protect us.

Schisandra

This berry is the love of a best friend and cheerleader. When we are depressed, lethargic, unmotivated, and overwhelmed, she lifts us out of the dark and the damp. She ignites our solar plexus with enthusiasm and unwavering faith in our capacity to show up to our lives and shine our gifts into the world.

Each plant has a unique signature, flavor, and way of loving and being loved.

We, too, are like the plants — diverse, interconnected, and in need of nourishment. When nourished, we thrive and can give abundantly, creating more beauty in the world.

Do not be ashamed of your need to love and be loved. Embrace it. And do not expect your partner, family, or human kin to meet your intimacy needs. There is a vast world of life, wonder, and relation all around you. You are a part of this sacred web of life. Go out and meet the plant and animal allies that, too, need our love. Befriend a wild landscape, a river, a bird, or a stone. Go love yourself and the world into our most marvelous blossoming. We are here to Love. And Love sets us free.

If you are interested in learning more about herbs and their meanings and properties, I invite you to become an apprentice for the School of the Sacred Wild.

Much Love,

Marysia Miernowska