By Stephanie DeFazio
It can feel like a struggle sometimes trying to understand the world and those around us. Through our own frustrations, and in an attempt to make things right and perfect, and spread love, we can even lose our sense of authenticity and being.
In a recent insightful post on the Sivana East blog, Lubomira Kourteba breaks down what love is and how truly embracing it can help us live our most authentic lives. She defines love as a "sense of being and in the being is the meaning." Love is not a thing, but a consciousness that is not perfect and not supposed to be defined or categorized.
Love is not there to please us or even make us happy always; it is here to challenge us, transform us and grow us; to push us beyond our own conditioned understandings, limitations and expand our perspectives, thereby expanding our consciousness.
During this time of COVID restrictions and social injustice, it's so important to take the time to fully grasp and embrace love and allow it to transform us. Luborima explains that we do this by paying attention to each other, which makes us alive to each other. This simple step of paying attention to the needs of those around us connects us to love on a deeper level, and in turn, we feel more alive and present. We have more empathy too.
As we continue to feel more alive, we have the strength to keep on moving forward and rise above any fear, oppression, or obstacles we may face.
And we’ll rise up Rise like the waves. We’ll rise up In spite of the ache. We’ll rise up And we'll do it a thousands times again.
-Lyrics from Rise Up, written and performed by Andra Day
Our new September 2020 exhibit, WE RISE is an invitation to ALL ARTISTS to create new work that responds to how we move forward and persevere, despite what we are going through. We reveal our true strength through all the unexpected waves, and the painful aches.
WE RISE, is accepting artwork through August 26th. Register here!
