Love and Be Loved

The tag line from the romantic movie musical, Moulin Rouge, is: "The greatest thing you'll ever learn, is to love and be loved in return". This was borrowed from a song made famous by Nat King Cole called "Nature Boy".

The songwriter of Nature Boy was eden ahbez. eden insisted that no capital letters be used in his name as only God and Infinity should be capitalized. He felt that the tag line: "To be loved in return, is too much of a deal, and that has nothing to do with love."

eden ahbez would have liked to modify the tag line reading: "The greatest thing you'll ever learn is to love and be loved, just to love and be loved". I can identify with this man's concept of love instead of control. In his simpleton life he chose God and Nature first which allowed him the clarity to see miles and miles, over and through, our world of materialism and its entrapping nature.

I can also identify with loving a woman so much to where she becomes all your hopes, dreams, and future. Once loss of this special someone is experienced a realization occurs to where you are left with you. The problem is that there is no more you since you gave that up long before the end of the relationship.

There is hope in that those bohemian ideals of truth, beauty, freedom and love are within your reach again. This is because the magic of love we all long for was the energy created between the two individuals. It's the electricity or chemistry that is talked about when describing relationships.

It truly is the creation factor between the two individuals. Each of us shows up differently through different people as we co-create our reality. Each is an observer, and through mutual expectations, the two create as one their experience of love together.

Spiritual love may be given freely without stings attached. I have experienced it as more of a compassion like when Jesus said "Forgive them, for they know not what they do". Yet, romantic partnership love may actually have agreements or implicit unspoken responsibilities that each party needs to clarify.

We all know that the keystone and fundamental foundation to any fulfilling relationship worth having occurs first with a clear ability to know and love yourself. I believe that the second most valuable characteristic is the ability to trust the other enough to communicate openly, freely, and with mutual respect.

So, it is important to review your romantic relationship's fine print and verify each other's alignment to that fine print. Most romantic/partnership relationships comprise of monogamy, commitment, responsibilities, trust, respect and ability to put the other's needs before your own.

If each is respectful of the other's needs and maintains their since of self it will allow the unfolding of an interdependent and fulfilling relationship. It is each individuals responsibility to be secure in themselves through self love, self nurturing, self respect, self worth and self esteem. The inner strength of self will allow that individual to be independent which then fosters a relationship of interdependence. This of course is in direct contrast to an unhealthy, controlling, manipulative, and damaging relationship of the dark side of co-dependence.

I now have a greater appreciation for eden's desire to revise his lyrical line of poetry to emphasize that there is "no deal" in love. However, I have to remind myself of which love we are speaking as there is a difference between compassionate love that Gandhi practiced and companion love comprising of romance, financial necessity, and societal convention.

Thus, this first day of 2007, I will commit to self love, compassion love, and know that romantic "companion love" is still within the realm of possibilities.

Thanks eden (nature boy).