LETTERS FROM LOVE — With Special Guests Nayah and Mekhi!

You belong here

OH HELLO THERE!

Good day to you, Lovelets of Planet Earth — wherever this moment may find you!

Here we are again, gathering together in the name of Love, to remind ourselves of who we are, and what we are actually about.

We are Love, we do Love, we receive Love, we believe in Love.

And the topic of our conversation today is BELONGING.

Back when my partner Rayya was sick and dying, we used to do this calming thing with each other where one of us would ask, “Who do you belong to?” and the other would say, “I belong to you.” The next question was: “How long have you belonged to me?” and the answer, always, was: “Since before the Earth’s crust cooled.”

It was so comforting to hear those words, because that is the kind of belonging I have longed for and sought out for most of my life — the beautiful but fragile sense of belonging to another human being. For so many decades, I was overcome by a great and nearly unbearable need to have my sense of love and security come from another person, because that’s the only thing that ever made me feel safe. 

But other people can leave us sometimes, voluntarily or involuntarily. It’s a risky gambit, to place your sense of belonging in the care of another person, because life is so uncertain, and history shows us all the time that people can come and go. Even the people who are “supposed” to love us the most can change their minds about us and leave us behind, or fail to take care of us when their own needs become too overwhelming — or when it is time for them to depart the planet.

That being the case, maybe it’s a good idea for us to learn to generate our own sense of belonging — searching for it in the one heart that will be with us until the day we die: our own.

And that is why I do this practice, to make sure I’m held and loved, no matter what happens to anyone outside of me.

Our special guests this week are my beloved friends Nayasah McMillan and her son, Mekhi Curry. Nayah (as her friends call her) and I have been sharing Love Letters with each other for years, and I am delighted that you will get to meet her beautiful heart today, in person. Nayah is my friend and sister (and the founder of her own skincare business: moyeaskin.com!)

Also, this is our first mother/child duo to share their Letters from Love with us. It makes so much sense that Nayah and Mekhi wrote their letters together because these two are more than just a mother and her son; these two are a TEAM. A young single mom and her gifted child, Nayah and Mekhi have walked through fire together, learning how to take care of themselves and each other in a world that has not always been kind to them. But they generate their own kindness, and they’ve always got each other’s backs. They pray together, cook together, play together, and grow together. And I love that Nayah has brought her son the gift of this practice — so he can learn how to find Love within himself for the rest of his life, whether his wonderful mother is there to hold him or not.

Thank you, Nayah and Mekhi, and I can’t wait to hear what Love has to tell you all this week about BELONGING!

Dear Love, what would you have me know today about belonging?

Lololololol, my baby, you make me laugh so freaking HARD.

You humans are INSANE. You’ve got to be the craziest brains on this planet! My child, my sweet little nutso, do you understand that humans are the only living thing on this planet that ever wonders if they belong here? That humans are the only creatures who can be inside of a moment — inside any moment — and think, “I am not part of this. I am outside of this moment. I am separate from this thing that’s happening. I am standing outside of this time and space, different from all that I behold, alien to this experience.”

Okay, maybe cats do it too.

But darling, darling, darling — seriously, do you see how literally insane that is? How could you do anything but belong? You ARE this. You are from here. You are of this. You are co-creating this. You are the Earth Experience itself. You are creation in motion. How could you think you are ever outside of it?

I know, I know, my love — you always think you’re from a different planet, and that you’re just visiting here. But I’ve got news for you. You are from this planet. You are of here, from here, made of the same elements and minerals and magic of the Earth itself. And any time you feel different or other, you are out of your sweet little mind.

My child, remember when the Buddha was sitting under the bodhi tree, right before he became the Buddha. Just sitting there, suffering and overthinking and struggling, and trying really hard to become enlightened even though maybe there wasn’t even a word yet that meant enlightened? And Mara, the demon of imagination and illusion and separateness, kept coming to him and trying to tempt him to give up his seat and to step out of his meditation. “You could be a great king,” Mara told him. “You should go out there in the world and be a great king! You could have a thousand sexy dancing girls! You could be a great soldier, commanding a powerful army. You have abandoned your family. What are you doing here? You should return home. Think of this nonsense that you’re doing, sitting under this tree, it’s stupid. You should be something more, less, something different, you’re not good enough, you are wasting your life.”

But the Buddha did not move. Just sat there.

And then on the 49th day, the Buddha put his finger to the ground — literally, GROUNDING himself — and asked the Earth itself to affirm him. Asked the Earth to affirm that he deserved to be here, that he deserved to be happy and liberated, because he was from this place, of this place. Because he was a child, a product, of the Earth itself.

And what did the Earth do, my love? The Earth — otherwise known as Love — affirmed, joyously affirmed — yes, Siddhartha, you are one of ours, you belong here, you deserve to be liberated because you are from here. And in that moment, all the illusions that the demon Mara was trying to use to tempt the Buddha away from peace turned into white blossoms, and vanished. And the Buddha, understanding everything at last, became the Buddha.

Honey, when I tell you that the Earth affirmed the Buddha, what I’m saying is that Love affirmed the Buddha — that I affirmed the Buddha, that Belonging affirmed the Buddha, that the Everything affirmed the Buddha. Just as I love and affirm you, and claim you always as my own.  Look no further than that for belonging.

You are from here, my angel — and wherever you go in the world, you belong there because you are there. You belong here, there, everywhere — in the miracle that is constantly unfolding. You are of this happening. You are the happening.

Now enough of this nonsense about not belonging.

Have a beautiful day. Have a beautiful belonging.

Love,

Love

Prompt

This week, feel free to ask this question: “Dear Love, what would you have me know about belonging?”

Also! An Onward Book Club announcement

In case you missed it on Instagram and Facebook, yesterday I announced that the Onward Book Club’s next selection is BREAK THE CYCLE by Dr. Mariel Buqué. This book, this book. It is all about unseen wounds and what we can do to fix them, about the effects of intergenerational stress and trauma with both big and little Ts, about the powerful mind-body connection, and best of all, about solutions! Join me and the very smart and kind Mariel Buqué on Instagram live on Wednesday, March 27th at 7pm ET for our conversation. Let’s do this!