Love Letters for a Garden of Good and Evil

There is more than one kind of love to which one might attest for which one might compose more than one kind of letter... These are a few that I hold dear... I share them in the hopes of wildflowers abloom with joyous wonder... in a tomorrow for all.  

For Love

Love is... well... love is.

Is it not?

Without possession. Without coercion. Without deceits lurking within shadows. Without secrets within secrets within secrets, creating fogs of wisps... ephemeral and mercurial... there and not there... here and not here.

Love is.

Nothing more. Nothing less. Than innocence flooding hearts. With goodness. With kindness. With tenderness. With care.

Are we not all deserving of all that love is... was... could be? Could not all of us care for each other... today... yesterday... tomorrow... with a love that warms... rather than a love that scorches? A love that nurtures... rather than destroys? A love that lets go... rather than fetters?

Love is.

For me. For you. For all.

For Hope 

Hope.

The most indefatigable of virtues.

In the darkest hour... of the darkest night... in the darkest of dark places... there is always hope.

Galadriel's vial is but a pale mimicry of that which persists... here.

Unassailable. Inalienable. Treasure of all treasures. A four letter word that encapsulates that which pierces the bleakest of human experiences.

While hope may falter in the face of the most terrifying ordeals of the mind, the body, the heart, the spirit... hope never flees.

In the darkest hour... in the darkest night... in the darkest of dark places... in the mind... in the body... in the heart... in the spirit... hope springs eternal.

For me. For you. For all.

For Grace

Grace.

Real beauty.

Not artifice that fades. Not artifice that droops and withers and dissipates with time. Not artifice that... poof... disappears... with perspective, with knowledge, with insight, with truth.

Real beauty is that which is bestowed upon all of us... by our humanity... our inviolable dignity... our perfection. Actuations of the benevolence of a power greater than us.

Real beauty... is grace.

It glows from within. It radiates from the heart. It flows from the soul. It is indiscriminate in it's relentless illumination of every dark corner... in me, in you, in all.

For grace is but another word for truth. And divine grace is but another word for the truest truth. And there is nothing that grace can't purify with the light of truth... 

within me, within you, within all of us.

For Joy

Joy.

That feeling that floods the mind, the body, the heart, the spirit... with bubbles and mirth and effervescence. That feeling that incontrovertibly assures us... that we are alive.

For what is the point of the most timid of pursuits... the most opulent of pursuits... the most banal of pursuits... the most wanton of pursuits... if not to capture that feeling of vivacity that breathes life into our minds, our bodies, our hearts, our spirits?

For joy derives from virtues far greater than greed and avarice, self-conceit and aggrandizement:

generosity and gratitude. 

Too often we confuse the thrill of the hunt... the impassioned quickening of the chase... the ecstasy of consummation... with that feeling of vigor and vitality that is pure and innocent... that blooms within gardens of generosity and gratitude...

within me, within you, within all of us.

For Peace

Peace.

Above all else... I stand for peace. 

To the soldier in the tank... to the soldier on the ground... to the soldier in the sky... to the soldier in command... I give myself... my defenseless arms... my weaponless hands... my bare feet... my naked body... my open heart...

For there is no peace worth the cost of life.

There is no life worth the cost of peace.

In life... there are predators and there are prey. But that which intertwines them... is not war. It's life. A cycle never ceasing. A circle ever circling. Of life. Of liberty. Of limbs free of fetters that ensnare the powerful and the powerless... in arenas of death... rigged for the amusement of royalty and philistines alike.

In the end, there is no nobility from treachery, much less treachery at the end of a sword.

In the end, there is no peace, without freedom.

For me. For you. For all.

For Forgiveness

Life is life.

Death is death.

There is nothing betwixt the former and the latter... that cannot be forgiven... under the full unadulterated truth of love, hope, grace, and joy.

In life... in death... compassion and mercy reign supreme.

Compassion for humanity. Mercy for inhumanity.

Even when humanity and inhumanity are two faces of the same god... forgiveness is boundless.

Even when humanity and inhumanity are two faces of the same king... love is eternal.

Even when humanity and inhumanity are two faces of the same man... grace purifies all.

In the eyes of powers greater than us... no one of us is undeserving... of compassion, mercy, and forgiveness...

...for what we do... what we've done... what we'll yet do... who we are... who we've been... who we'll yet be... today... yesterday... tomorrow...

Fin

I long for love renewed in the light of day, in the light of truth, in the light of who I am... who I've been... who I'll yet be. Without shadows. Without fog. For in my heart... in my life... I've only ever wanted to love true... to love more...

But alas...

Because of me... because of you... was there was never an us...? (Notwithstanding that my heart has always been and will always be... big enough for more...)

Were this but a story... that I could rewrite... without secrets and lies, treachery and terror...

But alas...

We are all bonsai...

Struggling to summon the phenomenal courage to face the truest truth:

That we are all... the pruner and the bonsai.

By our own hand... we bridle our hearts and fetter our souls... for all eternity. The powerful as powerless as the powerless.

For indeed... how powerful are any of us... if no one can rewrite the story... and no one can rewrite the rules... and no one can set all of us free?