You've Got The Love

I've been relying a lot on guided meditations to get me through these tough past few weeks. Sometimes (but unfortunately not always) it really seems to have the effect of softening me. Lately I've been particularly fond of Jack Kornfield's mind like sky meditation, which has a lovely part at the end that really comforts me:

And now before you open your eyes, let this vast space of awareness be filled with the spirit of compassion for all those who get caught, for all those who forget the vast and free space of mind that is their own true nature. Forgetting, they get caught and entangled and create the sorrows of the world. Let this great, open mind of awareness be filled with compassion for all beings that forget their true nature. And bless them, that they too may remember who they really are.

This comforts me to repeat because it feels to me that this is what happened to my New Englander. Through his love for me and mine for him, he got in touch with his own true nature, which is so beautiful and vast and hopeful and open and glorious, and spending the time I did with him in it was right up there with having my babies in terms of the greatest miracles of my life. But he couldn't stay there. He got caught. He forgot. He became entangled, and in doing so he created a lot of sorrow for us both. But he didn't do it out of malice, or because he made a decision that he didn't really love me, or really for any conscious reason. He did it because it's what he knows. He didn't know what else to do. He couldn't lean into our love, and I had my own fears, which at times exacerbated the situation.

Now I realize guided meditations aren't exactly like the Lord that the foxy Florence is singing about here, but I use them, I reckon, in a similar way:

Sometimes I feel like throwing my hands up in the air
I know I can count on you
Sometimes I feel like saying, "Lord, I just don't care."
But you've got the love I need To see me through

Time after time I think, "Oh, Lord, what's the use?"
Time after time I think it's just no good
'Cause sooner or later in life, the things you love you lose
But you got the love I need to see me through

Meditating allows for space around the pain of losing my love, and it reminds me that:

You got the love
You got the love
You got the love
You got the love
You got the love
You got the love

Yes I do. I've got the love I need to see me through. It may not be the love I want in the physical form, at least not for today, but I've got the love I need...