Comments on: My Valentine https://new2.orinam.net/my-valentine/ Hues may vary but humanity does not. Wed, 13 Feb 2013 17:02:28 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7 By: Sundar https://new2.orinam.net/my-valentine/comment-page-1/#comment-5295 Wed, 13 Feb 2013 17:02:28 +0000 https://new2.orinam.net/?p=8231#comment-5295 Amen to all of what you just so eloquently wrote! All the best in your journey of loving (and being kind and compassionate towards) yourself and your partner. My partner and I are fellow travelers in this journey.

]]> By: Mahesh https://new2.orinam.net/my-valentine/comment-page-1/#comment-5294 Wed, 13 Feb 2013 07:46:13 +0000 https://new2.orinam.net/?p=8231#comment-5294 Amen to that. Love can be more healing and less toxic, but we get so mixed up in attention, power and belonging that love gets confusing :/

]]> By: Shailja Patel https://new2.orinam.net/my-valentine/comment-page-1/#comment-5292 Wed, 13 Feb 2013 04:22:04 +0000 https://new2.orinam.net/?p=8231#comment-5292 Yes! The work of loving, learning to truly see and love someone beyond our projections onto them….one of the most important tasks we can undertake – and one for which we are so poorly educated.

Thank you for making the point that the pandemic of sexual violence is a failure of love on a global scale, and calls us urgently to take on love as political work, work for our survival.

I think of how Bell Hooks and June Jordan and Audre Lorde have undertaken this work, and given us the gift of their writings about it. Of Shange’s “The Love Space Demands” and her immortal line: “I found god in myself and i loved her / i loved her fiercely.” One of the most powerful guides i know to real love, free of fantasy and projection, is Ligia Dantes. Her essay collection, The Tao Of PostModern Living, is available as an e-book.

Your closing line evokes June Jordan:
“I will learn to love myself well enough to love you (whoever you are), well enough so that you will love me well enough so that we will know, exactly, where is the love: that it is here, between us, and growing stronger and growing stronger.”

]]>