...more recent posts
Feb 14, 2001
Valentine's Day
Love, it is hoped, will get us through February.The month has a low reputation, and Love is not much in evidence in the Park just now, at least not the kind that goes about trailing hearts and flowers.
Few are the flowers of February.
One does see human couples, but not so many as in warmer months, and these are too bundled for gestures of affection. And though a pair of Carolina Wrens maintain their bond through the Winter, one is sternly warned not to anthropomorphize their behavior. Other species take new mates yearly, and Hummingbirds are technically "promiscuous", but we must be careful not to project our values onto their habits. A penchant for monogamy is not to be construed as Love, nor does it make a species more Human.
And what of plants?
And other things?
Does the mycorrhizal fungus love its symbiotic root?
No. It is not allowed.
Love, it seems, is up to us to commit.
That may be too much of a responsibility: to have to find within ourselves all the Love this World requires.
We haven't managed it yet.
We will do better when we allow for Love among the "lower" life forms.
This need not be a self-projection, but a revelation of something beyond the self: that we proceed from the same Source as all of Life. Love is just another name for that Source. We like to think we focus it more acutely than the other creatures, and perhaps we do, but it's the same power that animates us all alike. If we cannot see that it surrounds us, we will not find it within us. Its ardor stirs the whole Creation, making equals of us all.
High Life or Low, we are no less than Lovers.
No less than Loved.
Even in February,
poking through the faded snow.