Every good story is a love story. And every love story is a story of freedom. It is love that frees us from captivity, oppression or brutality. 

    When we really love someone we set them free, sometimes even risking our our life to do so. When that someone really loves us, they take us with them, not wanting to let us go.

    The Sufi know 99 names for love. Each of these names hold properties of freedom, delivering the heart from bondage or restriction. The sufi call it remembrance. For it is not that we don’t know love and all of her qualities, it is only that we forget.

    Love may unlock imprisonment or self-imposed limiting beliefs. We may forget that we are worthy, deserving, joyful, and peaceful human beings. 

    True love greets us with a complete acceptance for who we are.

    Love’s attention turns us from a particle into a wave. Seen like this, we are moved to share the essence of our being with the whole world. Love frees us into our own true nature and personal destiny. 

    There are many types of love: brotherly and sisterly love, motherly or fatherly love, conjugal love, self-love, and spiritual or Divine love. Love wants the best for us, it is not at all selfish. But in this selflessness a lover finds all her needs are met too. Love resonates with us because we are love. 

    Love breathes everywhere around us and everywhere inside of us, we may practice to allow and receive. We may recall love as a steady stream,  continuously filling our own tank from the pumps of our choosing. 

    Love is allowing not controlling. Love is gracious and spacious. Love cares for you and cares about you. You know when you are with love because you can breathe easy;  you feel enlivened and awakened. Love brings out your best or better self. 

    Love is meeting someone whom we recognize, even in a first glance. We feel an electricity in the spaces between our fingertips and palms of our hands. We feel deep stirrings in the sacred groves of our hearts.

    This is belonging. There is no ownership in this belonging. There is only freedom. The freedom to love and be loved. To live and create a love story.