I looked for love and this is what I found
I looked for love and this is what I found
contemplating voice as art as love and a thought exercise on living in love songs
Lately, I’ve been challenging myself to pay closer attention to the beauty of creation. To look for and respond to evidence of love in the mundane moments of everyday life. In the process, I remembered that love is always looking for me too. One of the many places love found me this week was in my commute into the city for work.
I’ve come to really cherish those 35 minutes of bliss on the train. It’s one of my favorite mini escapes. I’ll usually listen to a podcast or read a book or sometimes I’ll just sit in silence and day dream. Something about being physically in transition invites my mind to wander as well.
Last week, during my train ride to work, I decided to read the book Remember Love by Cleo Wade and listen to open this wall by berlioz, a jazz album I had been wanting to check out for a while. I couldn’t have picked a better pairing. As soon as I pressed play on the album and flipped open the book, I was transported into another reality. One where the beauty of that experience was all that mattered. One where presence defied the passing of time.
This new reality continued to fill me with awe as I walked from the train station to my job. It felt like I was both the viewer and the protagonist in a scene from a movie made especially for me. In the midst of the hustle and bustle of the city, I felt grounded in the intimacy of my own gaze and this colored how I looked at everything around me. This is how I welcome beauty into my everyday life. In challenging myself to do more of that, I’ve come to realize a few things.
For one, I realize that I actually do this quite often. For me, finding beauty is about meaning-making/making meaning (Questions that may/may not need answers: am I making meaning or is meaning making me? or is it both?) Meaning-making is that dynamic co-creative process between one’s own unique consciousness and reality. This is actually something we’re all doing all the time, just not always with intention or awareness. Finding beauty is about pulling out an intriguing detail about an experience and letting my mind craft a poem out of it. Then, living in that poem for a little while. Then, sharing the findings. Then, starting all over again.
I think I do this often because I need to. And based on the findings along the way, spirit is confirming there’s a reason I have this need.
What would it mean if I stop viewing my voice as something I must earn?
— question that came up in my 10.5.24 journal entry
Last week, I was journaling about my relationship to my voice which gradually shifted into a reflection about my relationship to my art. In that journaling session, I came to the realization that my art isn’t supposed to do anything. It’s simply an invitation to trust and accept myself, learn new things and be an active participant in the divine articulation of my own uniqueness.
My art does have demands. It demands courage, vulnerability and most importantly presence. But meeting these demands often feels really good. My art isn’t supposed to do anything. It simply invites me to feel alive and feel connected to spirit.1
I think it’s interesting that throughout writing this journal entry, “my voice” has gradually been replaced with “my art”. I think that’s my highest self’s way of reminding me that I’m here *gestures widely* to make the world more beautiful – make it more full with my unique expression, color it with the electromagnetic waves of my heart. So now we’ve made our way back to love. *whispers* it never stopped being about love.
My voice, my art, and my love are all intimately intertwined.
I have to take a moment to nerd out a little about the astrology of this statement because these words helped me appreciate something beautiful and essential about my natal chart - my Sun in Taurus and Moon in Libra both answering to Venus (planet of love and connection) in Aries. Along with my pisces rising with Venus in Aries as its exaltation lord.
In other words, my birth chart and felt experiences both confirm: Love is my central organizing principle (sun), my sanctuary (moon), and my saving grace (rising).
In honor of this full-circle meaning-making session about the relationship between my voice, my art and my love. I want to take a moment to share how I like my love along with a mini-deep dive into some of my favorite love songs.
How do you like your love?
I like my love all-encompassing, dynamic, responsive, protective, free. I love when love feels like a song, holding me gently, immersing me into another realm where time is suspended and separation is a distant memory. In the song (of love), connection is all I’ve ever known and the beauty fills me with so much awe it awakens an emotion that I don’t have the words for.
Over the last couple weeks, I’ve been meditating on love songs that awaken that unknown emotion. I immediately thought about the beautiful catalogue of R&B/soul love songs released in the 70s. (I was raised by my grandparents so yes I have an old soul.) I’m so curious to contemplate and have conversations with elders about what made the love songs of that era so unique. But that’ll be for another article. And perhaps in another article further down the line, I’ll write a formal love letter to Black music as a portal through which the spirit moves.
But for now, I want to wax poetic about what it feels like to live in some of my favorite 70s love songs.2 I highly recommend you listen along and really open yourself up to the experience of the song. What kind of worlds does your consciousness weave in response to these songs of love? Let your body move and your mind wander.
As by Stevie Wonder (1976) // Love Endures
Living In As:
This world of love is steady. In it, I feel held, stable, and pleasantly surprised. As the world continues to unfold, I become mesmerized with it’s commanding, intensifying presence. This world of love is strong, firm, self-assured. The wisdom of this world lies deep in the bass of the production. The color lies in the treble. The affirmation lies in the lyrics. Wonder’s vocals – one of the many languages of this world - are powerful, electrifying, primal. This world’s love is expansive, persistent, confident, enduring the nonsensical, infinite.
Favorite Lines:
there’s honestly too many to choose from; the beauty of the lyrics spark something new with every listen but here are some of my favs:
“until we dream of life and life becomes a dream”
“until the day that you are me and I am you”
A Song For You by Donny Hathaway (1971) // Love as Legacy
Living In A Song for You:
This world of love is old, eerie, dream-like, haunting and mysterious. In it, I feel spirallic, reflective, and nostalgic. This world wants to make space for all of me, in all my imperfections “withholding nothing”. The fullness of Hathaway’s tone serves as a demanding invitation to unburden all my sorrows here, to exhale all my pain, grief and love until there’s no breath left. This world offers wisdom through transformation, renewal without disavowal. This world teaches me that love is the only legacy that matters.
Favorite Lines:
“and if my words don’t come together,
listen to the melody
‘cause my love is in there hiding”
“I love you in a place
where there’s no space or time”
Baby, This Love I Have by Minnie Riperton (1975) // Love Embodied
Living In Baby, This Love I Have:
The rhythm of this world of love is hypnotizing. It instantly speaks to my body igniting the most irresistible groove. The outskirts of this world are smooth, mysterious, stalking, seductive. In this part of the world, a two-step is the most natural way to get around. Riperton’s siren-like voice is the train that carries me from one destination to another taking me to the center of this world. New instruments and rhythms join the ensemble as we get closer. By the time we arrive to the center, the world has transformed into an extravagant dance floor. Riperton’s yearning in falsetto draws me in closer as the full production casts its spell, urging me to know love embodied.
Favorite Lines:
“Perception is the key,
it’s evident you see
what this is all about
is love entire” (the introduction of the strings when she sings these lines make this part even more perfect)
Free by Deniece Williams (1976) // Love’s Sensation
Living In Free:
This world of love is ethereal, watery, fairytale-like, somewhere far beyond. It ripples with mystery. Williams’ effortless tone and perfect pitch invites me to float through this world rather than walk. The bass and drums are this worlds gravity, gracefully tossing me from side to side. This world beckons me to dance with the sensation of love. To let love’s glimmers enchant my senses. The lyrics of this world encourage me to honor love’s duality. To enjoy love while it lasts in the company of another but always return to the home that love has made inside of me, the only place where love sets me free.
Favorite Lines:
Side note, I don’t know that I’ve ever heard a soprano vocalist enter a track as smooth and clear and magical as Williams does on this masterpiece. The intro lyrics are beautiful but her voice makes them gorgeous:
“Whispering in his ear
my magic potion for love”
“Feeling you close to me,
makes all my senses smile”
Love Will Find A Way by Pharoah Sanders (1978) // Love’s Vision
Living In Love Will Find a Way:
This world of love is an enchanted forrest surrounded by water, brimming with life and melodies at every turn. As soon as I enter, i’m certain the elixir is hidden somewhere within its atmosphere. In this world, the trees sway, the tides roll in as the birds hit the most beautiful notes. Every instrument of this world plays its part, sometimes in harmony sometimes going off on their own tangent. Each instrument wants to teach me something distinct about the wholeness of love. About love’s cycles, range, simplicity, roar, multiplicity. Spirals upon spirals, this world spins me into a vision of love itself.3
That’s all I have for now! But if you want a wider collection of love songs to vibe to, or love worlds to visit, check out the playlist below. It’s mostly 70s/early 80s R&B/Soul but over time, I’ll likely add other love songs throughout the decades:
I personally think this is a beautiful way to describe Venus in Aries. As someone with both Venus and Mercury in Aries, I love finding new language to describe my relationship to my art.
Some of these songs absolutely deserve their own post and in future posts I’d love to wade in their depths a little longer but for now these mini-vignettes felt most aligned.
There aren’t many lyrics in this song which is why I didn’t highlight any favorite lines but the lead saxophonist is in a beautiful conversation with the rest of the instruments. I imagine hidden in the melodies are unique insights on all the ways that love finds.