Love Preserves

It is not hard to wonder when at the end of a chapter in your life what is coming up on your journey of happenings.  We often want to save the memories that brought us joy, recall the space that we shared in lasting loving moments and truly maintain them in safe keeping.  How do we preserve a love that will last?  For some it is a very natural process, but for others there is a sense of failure and disappointment associated with everything pertaining to love. As we move away from negativity to self-preservation we may actually take the time to lace all fond moments, lasting feelings and magical experiences that also contributed to containing the love.

Like canning or preserving fruit, preserving love may require adding some sugar (affection), stirring (friendship), stewing (romance), and/or increasing natural ingredients (unconditional love).  Maybe the heart is the place where the love preserves are jarred and certainly like glass breaking, hearts go through their share of ruin.  The thing is, shattering a glass jar filled with preserves is messy, like love and life, plain ole messy.  Learning to love and create tools for ourselves while in a mess are some of loves best lessons.  Honestly, it is not until many of us experience the fractured heart, the messy ruptures or the shattering misfortune that we acknowledge the process of conserving or protecting the desired elements that created harmony, assurance, stability and freedom.

We preserve history, culture, furniture, and homes while taking great pride from the process as we maintain and repurpose.  The preservation of love can be haunting in each of us if we are believers of course, but it is healing and freeing as our hearts contain the loves of affection, friendship, romance or unconditional love.  And if our preserves vanish and our jar feels empty, deep within we can reach inside our hearts to recreate, refill or replenish.

As we learn to safeguard love, we learn self-preservation.  Our asana practice allows for self-preservation, learning about ourselves, accepting ourselves and uniting with ourselves.  All of which permit us to connect with others and can more love preserves along the way.

Secret Recipes

My grandmother, Abuelita Falcon, is a fantastic cook. In fact at age 97, she creates meals that are delicious, nutritious and comforting regularly. As a child, I spent many afternoons after school visiting with her and watching her cook as I sampled away.  Upon entering adulthood, people would ask me, how had I learned to cook?  The answer at that time was simple of course, I just do what I saw my grandmother do but I make a few adjustments and in some cases a conscious choice of ingredients that may be a little healthier with increased nutritional value.  Traditional Cuban fare will always be at my core, as I have continued to pass this on to my own children and it is a piece of culture that is transferred with great ease and love.

Entering the uncomfort zone

What is your level of tolerance for discomfort?  Do you know? Or do you ignore the signs and live with it everyday without recognizing it?  Is it out of habit?  Many people live in pain when they can step outside of it, while some think that suffering is the only way to live because it makes others happy.  Or does it?  We become comfortable in situations that do not deliver full potential or daily joy.  Sometimes we stay in these circumstances for a lifetime.  Sometimes we think it is the only way to survive because we refuse to live outside of our comfort zone.