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In 2001 my hair was falling out in clumps due to stress.
I was not taking care of myself and it seemed to be reflected in my plants: as I lost hair, my spider plants were losing foliage. I noticed that they seemed to be symbolizing me and my hair—funny coincidence that I had plants that looked like heads of hair…
So I started talking to the plants and telling them I loved them and how beautiful they were. Even if I couldn’t love myself, I could love my plants. Telling them they were beautiful when they were anything but beautiful was very transformative for me.
Finally, I stopped using shampoo and all other hair products. From that date I only use the mildest conditioner to wash my hair. Read the book Curly Girl if you doubt what I am saying, but I stopped the hair loss. Plus my plants got lush and healthy to boot!
But best of all, I learned a valuable lesson in (self) love. It is a challenge to love yourself when you don’t feel at your best, but that is the meaning of love: it bridges dimensions.
Just like the witch in the story of Rapunzel, who made an unfair bargain with Rapunzel’s father—imprisoning the child to save the life of her mother, our default judgemental culture makes love into a conditional bargaining chip—”I’ll love you if you love me,” or “I’ll love me when I think I look good.”
Life flows regardless; judgement only stops our ability to participate in the flow by replacing it with a static state of conditional awareness.
But when you find a way to love yourself you transform your life back into a free-flowing state of being that allows all conditional perceptions to express themselves, whether it is a judgement of ugliness, beauty, disease or health. Our small self (as opposed to our greater/higher selves) is what needs to be loved—love becomes a bridge when we can still hear the judgements—our own and other’s—but we (deliberately) choose to listen to a different frequency instead.
Picasso said, “I do not seek—I discover.”
I have come to the conclusion that love is always there, waiting for you to finally wake up and notice it. We spend our whole lives seeking for that which is already there, and still take a lifetime to learn what love really is. And sometimes I feel really stupid that I have to learn this over and over again. But love will never push itself forward.
The ability to realize love in the midst of this dense environment is a real Magician’s trick. The Magician—or the Mage—is an alchemist of Spirit. Love is his tool—the agent of transformation and change.
Aliyah Marr
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