Tonglen Love Den- February Candle Club- Limited Edition

February, the shortest month of the year can feel like the longest, the darkest. The “dead” of winter in the northern hemisphere. As I contemplate this, I am surrounded by a thick blanket of snow that absorbs all sound yet reflects all light - the contrast of this month in living form. The Love Forest.

Around the world, people gather for cultural festivals and celebrations of excess. Elaborate costumes and masks flood the streets in full color to overflow our cups before stripping down, to forget before we remember.  A lightness in the revelry, an ease in the freedom of adornment and disguise. 

Some detox, fast, purge, give up what we’ve clung to. The ground is still frozen but farmers and gardeners plan their plots, gather their seeds. Costumes discarded, people now look for the lightness in absence. The wholeness in emptiness. Who are we without the things we love? 

Or the ones we love? Valentine’s Day invites us to flaunt our lovers like accessories and proclaim our intentions with lavish gifts and expressions. We indulge the senses with pleasure to get down to the bare bones of the sentiment;

“I lose my self in love for you”.

In true love, my ego dissolves. In this fullness I am empty.

In the darkness we see clearest, in emptiness we perceive everything. 

Passion makes us mad. We lose ourselves in the quest for love and instead find who we truly are. Vessels for love, be it possessive love, romantic love or the encompassing love that exists in many forms: tending to the earth, caring for our families, protecting the vulnerable, fighting injustice, living in harmony with nature, contributing to community. Forging new pathways and paradigms.

This month offers a rare opportunity to pause, listen to the silence and hear what stillness has to say. It’s a sacred practice in death before the busy rebirth of springtime. To again decide what we’ll regenerate and what we’ll leave frozen in the ground. One last dark night before new life awakens. 

An excerpt from Goldie’s February Candle Club “Love Spell” 2018, what a different time that was!