I’m wheezing this morning. I swear I can’t figure out what triggers my asthma. It’s never the same thing, or sometimes one thing does, and sometimes it doesn’t? Is it waking up in the cold air in the RV? Is it something I ate the night before? Even with a low wheeze, I’m sent into this panic. I’m fine, but relaxing into it does nothing, I promise. It’s like when your leg is broken, it doesn’t just feel better to think calm thoughts.

The heart needs space

I have to move slowly with my heart. I’ve been told this over and over again. I typically say fuck off, but I’m realizing just how slow the right pace for me is. It’s not even five mph; it’s slower than walking. It’s like truly a meditative, steady, don’t even look at the owl pace.

I had a new artist friend, who’s a wildlife photographer, tell me about what it actually takes to get those full-on high-res shots of animals in the wild. He says you go out, you don’t have to be wearing anything fancy, and you start moving slowly. 

And when he means slow, he means don’t you dare sneeze or cough. Sit in one spot for a while. Just sit and be still. Bring your energy to the ground and just wait.

When you finally see an animal, don’t make eye contact with it. Never make eye contact. Keep your head out of their direction. You’re a guest here, so act like it.

When you notice something as rare as an owl, start to notice how much distance might be between you two. To get that shot, think slowly, strategically, zigzagging.

You want to start cutting the distance. You walk like you’re simply enjoying the earth beneath you, no agenda, no place to be, and nothing to see here. You move to the left. You pause. You never look in the owl’s direction. You pause a little longer. Then you cut to the right.

At this point, the distance between you has been drastically cut down. You’re still not making eye contact, not even looking its way. You might make one more cut, and before you know it, you’re right in front of the target of your heart. And, you haven’t startled its fight-or-flight response. That’s the goal. To move in a way where it’s natural fight or flight response never gets triggered.

Then, you take a few shots. Admiring its beauty.

It’s hard out here being a romantic

I think the romantic heart is like the owl. For all of us romantics out there, we were born into a timeline that is HARD on the heart. I saw a guy on Instagram the other day post a video of him doing a 3-way kiss with two girls in a club and say I’m just so in love. It’s insulting to love. I am insulted for love. Not because I don’t believe he loves them (he very well might), but because that is the display of love we’re getting today. A cheap, festival-injected, fast, lusty feast masquerading as love because we’ve so perverted what it even looks like.

Because when we pervert love for a 3-way kiss with two girls in the club, we’ll respond, ‘but it was a 5-day festival,’ and think that’s different. True story.

I’m on a warrior path for love because I feel how much my own heart and soul wants it. Wants it here on earth and with God. I know that longing, as I’ve written before, is actually the longing for God. It’s the kind of love that can only be fulfilled by connection with the Divine. My brain doesn’t know what that means yet. I don’t know how that feels. I don’t yet understand the intimacy required to feel fulfilled through that kind of connection with the Divine. I know it’s there, and I don’t know how.

And in the meantime, my brain tries to make sense of that longing with people. My nervous system can’t tell the difference between intense chemistry and deep compatibility yet. The fantasy is the inner child’s way of self-soothing.

I know I get impacted by the chemistry highs—the dopamine, oxytocin, all the bonding stuff that lights you up and makes everything feel like this could be it. And honestly, I think it’s because my heart, and a lot of our hearts, just want safety and certainty so badly. We’ve been through enough of the world’s crazy festival perversions of love that the minute we feel that spark, some little part of us goes, “Yes! This is home!”

And I’m a romantic, I live in story and symbol. My brain loves to weave someone into the narrative before it’s time. I’m built to tell stories and create worlds. Some people fall in love slowly through logic; some through poetic, imaginative leaps. My art, writing, and spirituality make me naturally inclined to feel life and love in this way. I’m learning to let myself have that fantasy without shaming it, but also to call myself back to the present. The rest is just my imagination decorating the homestead. I’m reminded of the phrase, collapsing fantasy into reality.

The practice of gently pulling yourself out of the dream and back into what’s real.

Of moving slowly when you notice the owl.

Of not running at it like a drunk in the club (or the 5-day festival).

Of finding love with the Divine first, through quiet devotion and patience.

Because love, like the owl, only lets you close when you’ve learned to move slow enough to deserve it.

Love,
Val