I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I currently have a concept — Be Open to Love: Words of Well-Being to Awaken Your Heart — going through a market testing process. Here’s an excerpt that seems to reflect the energy of the week: time will tell whether this material eventually makes its way into full-fledged bookdom. (No hearts or flowers in this art: the painting is known as “Ecstasy” or “Frenzy of Exultations,” and seemed a fitting accompaniment to the words.)
Love Challenges
It is easy to love the version of love that is all hearts and flowers
and moonlit nights. Yet love offers even richer territory when it
challenges you. A deeper love asks you to love the seemingly
unlovable and to trust that even when love disappears from view,
it continues within reach. In its original and unfiltered form,
love is fierce and strong, unyielding and intractable.
It challenges your commitment to the very notion of love,
not solely to an individual or a circumstance or an idea. Once you
dedicate yourself to living a life informed by love, it may feel
as though you are being tested over and over again.
You will be challenged to find the way home to love in the face of
all that is not love; you will be asked to embody a love that can
forgive the unforgivable and embrace what feels dark and threatening.
These are the times that love asks the most of you,
and these are the times that offer you the most enlightening and precious gems
that love has to offer.
words divinely wrought 
So true for me. Story of my life, really. What’s the “reward” in the end, Rachel? I haven’t yet seen the gems.
I look forward to your LOVE book, if it materializes. I hope it does. :-)
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Oh, SweetiEarthianne, I wish I could hand you the map to the gemfield! I have had glimpses and short visits there, so I know it exists. The “reward” may be in the searching, the turning over of stones, the surprises we stumble upon along the way, the continual cracking open of our hearts, and the willingness to recognize that we may be looking in the wrong direction and so shift our gaze. Remember, Love is looking for us as much (or more) as we are looking for Love. Hmmm, maybe it’s time to bring that poem out again. (:
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Rachel, I’ve been given demonstrable proof over and over again – Love is not for sissies!
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