You may have come across this very inspiring, very challenging invitation from 13th-century Sufi poet and mystic Rumi:
“A thousand half-loves must be forsaken to take one whole heart home.”
In contemplating this quote for several years, and with the intention to forsake as many half-loves as one whole heart requires, I realize there are at least a thousand, if not more, half-loves to forsake. And forsaking them takes determination, practice, and persistence.
There are half-loves, whole-loves, and somewhere in there are also our essential needs. We all have needs. Some are nonnegotiable; some may be open for negotiation. Some needs are absolutely essential, and it is of the greatest importance that our essential needs are protected, defended, and met, always. In my experience, essential needs and whole-loves are interrelated. In order to achieve greater self-satisfaction and greater satisfaction in our life’s work, in our relationships and in life—one whole heart—we must take the time to identify, get to know, and better understand our essential needs in order to better know, recognize, and stand for our whole-loves.
In this way, we explore and become intimate with our essential needs so we are best prepared to protect, defend, meet, and facilitate the meeting of them. Meeting our essential needs—safeguarding and standing by our whole-loves—requires that we say no to anything that negates, disregards, or violates any of them, and that we say yes only to that which honors and respects them, to that which allows for our essential needs to be met.
I write to you today because I discovered, it turns out, our life’s purpose also has half-loves, whole-loves, and essential needs. To be committed to our life’s purpose is a stimulating creative project that requires a delicate balance to keep all of this in mind and continually choose to honor, respect, and allow for our needs within the context of our life’s purpose’s needs.
In this process, I have had to temporarily forsake even some of my loves—like writing this usually weekly blog, making collective dreamscape collages, and dedicating myself to projects, causes, and relationships I believe in, nurture, and support—in order to focus on what I love most: responding to what I strongly feel as my life’s calling, which is that of devoting myself and my life to accompanying others on their journey toward greater wholeness and wellbeing.
Some years ago, this calling persisted: Let us dream together to shift and evolve our global loss and death culture!
Sometimes our life’s purpose and its call requires certain decisions and choices that we, in our comfort zone, would rather not have to make.
In my most recent case, it required the decision and choice of taking on the planning, organization, and administration of an international conference. And yet, I understood this service will help offer something of great value to our communities, and hopefully reverberate through every contributor and participant beyond México and into the rest of the world.
All of this to say, I have been very busy and occupied with the organization of the Dreaming & Healing: Dreaming the Arc of Life 2nd biennial conference, to take place at the end of this month, March 21-29, in San Miguel de Allende, México.
I wish to share with you this 4-year—and ongoing—effort to make a meaningful offering to the world. Please consider supporting it, sharing it, attending, and please spread the word!
With immense Love & Gratitude, for the wellbeing of all.
JOIN the dynamic, didactic and experimental conversation through which we dream new possibilities for our present and the future of our generations.
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