5 Easy Ways to Receive More Love
“Consider soulmates to also be in the form of friends and animals, the wind, the tides, the plants, pieces of art, and the moon. Great love lives everywhere.”
— Victoria Erickson
If you’re anything like me, you may have trouble receiving Love and care. Here is a lovely list that may help!
“Consider soulmates to also be in the form of friends and animals, the wind, the tides, the plants, pieces of art, and the moon. Great love lives everywhere.”
If you’re anything like me, you may not have as much trouble giving, as you do receiving Love and care. Here is a lovely list that may help! But before you even get started, I invite you to slow down, soften, and be a little more present. It’s difficult to notice or receive anything when you’re tense or busy rushing from one thing to the next!
Just for you card by Sybil Schleicher
Listen to the birds singing and imagine their song is just for you.
Take a deep breath and literally take in your surroundings.
Feel your skin tingling under the warm water of your shower or bath.
Receive compliments, smiles, hellos, and kind words without resistance or self-deprecation.
Appreciate and fully experience your meals. Engage your senses. Imagine your body fed.
For the full list and a free printable, along with events, surprises and delights, and more, become a member!
Black Love
“Black love is Black wealth and they’ll
probably talk about my hard childhood
and never understand that
all the while I was quite happy”
— Nikki Giovanni, Nikki-Rosa
Did you know that George Washington Carver discovered hundreds of uses for peanuts, or that Frederick Douglass was a prominent figure in the abolitionist movement, or that Jackie Robinson was the first Black person to play in Major League baseball? Probably. I think these and many, many other figures in Black history, American history, are incredibly important, their contributions meaningful and so very significant. I can't help but wonder, though, if sharing a list of facts, as has been the Black History month custom since time immemorial, or keeping our reveries focused on a select few actually celebrates the beauty and richness of a culture, its depths and complexities.
“Black love is Black wealth and they’ll
probably talk about my hard childhood
and never understand that
all the while I was quite happy”
Black heart by Bryan Garces
Did you know that George Washington Carver discovered hundreds of uses for peanuts, or that Frederick Douglass was a prominent figure in the abolitionist movement, or that Jackie Robinson was the first Black person to play in Major League baseball? Probably. I think these and many, many other figures in Black history, American history, are incredibly important, their contributions meaningful and so very significant. I can't help but wonder, though, if sharing a list of facts, as has been the Black History month custom since time immemorial, or keeping our reveries focused on a select few actually celebrates the beauty and richness of a culture, its depths and complexities.
I suppose I'm also interested, perhaps more interested, in whether their families broke out into full harmony when singing even "Happy Birthday" to a loved one, like mine does? Was weekly church service an event around which all other activities orbited, like it was in my family - where one's best clothes were worn and complimentary dinners were made and served on white tablecloths with special glassware, where the eldest man said prayer among held hands and bowed heads before anyone sat down to eat and share stories? Could their grandmothers wield an otherworldly kind of confidence and create safety and belonging with pies and cakes, and did they carry culture and pass it down in the most subtle ways to their female heirs, like mine could and did? Where did their ever present dignity come from?
I wish Black history museums curated stories of freedom alongside their many stories of slavery. I wish they talked about choirs and music and dance, about the style of Black pastors. I wish they discussed how hip-hop rose from a musical and cultural legacy of self-expression, and even joy, within hardship. I wish they celebrated textured hair and what its evolution may say about the state of an entire people; or how Black girl magic might very well be a thing - woven together, in no small part, from the character-building patience and fortitude required for routine hair care, and the conversation and community-building that happens all the while. I wish a visit would yield a deeper understanding of how language and culture have morphed and evolved, what lovely things remain, and what things have changed as a result of the diaspora, because I’d sincerely like to know more.
Mostly I'd like the evidence to confirm, to bring to life and living color, something I know to be true: Love never dies. It remains. It endures. It will find a way. There is so much beauty, so much richness in Black culture, so much to be celebrated. I invite us all to go a little deeper - to highlight the threads that are unique, to find the ones that are shared, and to celebrate them all as part of a wondrous human tapestry.
Because It's My WOK!
Once upon a time, in a moment of extra-real mom frazzle, I found my then toddler sitting in the middle of our breakfast nook, surrounded by ginormous puddles of water and overturned cups and spoons sprawled all over the table and floor. “What are you doing?!?” I asked in a slightly raised (okay, very raised) voice. I wasn’t especially interested in the answer as much as in making a point - she was doing something that needed to stop immediately. “Why are you making such a big mess with all this water?” I asked in horror and desperation. “Because it’s my WOK (toddler speak for ‘work’)!” she retorted, understanding on some level that using the word “work” was the only way I would grasp the gravity of what she was doing.
“Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. ”
Stuffies at a party by Ron Lach
Once upon a time, in a moment of extra-real mom frazzle, I found my then toddler sitting in the middle of our breakfast nook, surrounded by ginormous puddles of water and overturned cups and spoons sprawled all over the table and floor. “What are you doing?!?” I asked in a slightly raised (okay, very raised) voice. I wasn’t especially interested in the answer as much as in making a point - she was doing something that needed to stop immediately. “Why are you making such a big mess with all this water?” I asked in horror and desperation. “Because it’s my WOK (toddler speak for ‘work’)!” she retorted, understanding on some level that using the word “work” was the only way I would grasp the gravity of what she was doing.
I understood on some level. After all, if Life and Lovely Things could have existed in 1986, my 5-year old self would certainly have tried to build it. My daughter Loved to use her hands. She would transfer pretty much anything from one container to another - dirt, beads, flour, water, you name it. It was her absolute jam, part of her divine contribution to the world, a showcasing of her natural gifts. I put down a tarp, and let her continue.
I believe children are tiny sages walking among us, an important part of the human community, tasked with helping us remember who we are. As I study my own, I’m not sure work and play were ever meant to be compartmentalized things. Years and a million iterations of “you can’t play until your work is done” have created a separation between work and play where I don’t think one naturally exists. Not only that, we’ve collectively elevated work, though the word seems to carry a heavy energy for those of us who have had our bodies used for years on behalf of production - a sense that something is going to be hard and unsatisfying, draining us of our life force. Children haven’t yet learned to separate, to take on the drudgery of what we adults refer to as “work,” and when they’re very small, they haven’t yet downgraded play. So when my daughter used the word, she was simply trying to convey that what she was doing was important (that much she had grasped), meaningful enough to require her attention. What I called play, she called work, and the difference was a matter of importance.
Aren’t we in the best position to define what is important to us, where we will place our attention, how we will use our gifts? Isn't it time we start to unravel the play/work dichotomy, which isn’t a dichotomy at all? Is play frivolous and inconsequential? Is work serious and critical? Are joy and gravity, pleasure and practicality, mutually exclusive ideas? If you’ve ever watched a child playing, it seems not. They are in a state of flow - there is joy, certainly, and also a focus and presence, the likes of which would make any supervisor swoon. They are quite serious about it. Serious enough to call it “work.” Serious enough to cry insistently, “but we’re playing,” when it’s time to run errands or clean something, as though adults should just get it. Serious enough to get lost in time and space. Now clearly dishes need to be washed, floors swept, and bills paid. But I believe it is possible to start to blur the lines between work and play, such that life itself becomes a more joyful experience - to play meaningfully, to get a little more light-hearted about work (“just a spoonful of sugar,” folks), and to release our expectations about which is which.
Play blocks by Suzy Hazelwood
But first, we must choose. We must decide, and keep deciding, what is meaningful enough to merit our precious attention - our creativity, focus, care, talent, and joy. In that way, we get about the work of creating our lives in the same way we created tea parties, played dress-up, and built towers as children. And what could be more meaningful than that?
Love in all things,
April
P.S. BTW, the toddler is now 10 and still Loves to use her hands. A true maker, she’s crafting fairy houses, designing clothes, and building forts. She’s also quite enterprising. The kid will make a dollar. I’m excited to see how her story unfolds (and mine :-)).