Richard,1990’s, in the woods in Bearsville, NY

It is hard to believe that my husband Richard died on 2/14/2018. Eight years ago. A very short and very long time ago after almost fifty years together. Living at Kendal at Oberlin in Ohio has been such a gift to me and I would not be here if not for the work Richard and I did together, making it possible. I wrote something for our Valentine’s Day program to share with the community. I include it now, and those of you who knew him best, please remember to eat some ice cream in his memory, chocolate chip mint if you can fid it.

Valentine’s Day 2026             Love is all Around                                         

Love- I have been thinking about the title of our program, “Love is All Around.”  I believe this is true. Of course, I don’t walk around feeling love inside of me all the time. I certainly don’t feel lovable all the time. But I still believe that love is all around, all the time. For me, love just is. The invisible power of love seems to have been compressed into the singularity that exploded into the universe. It sustained the eons of time it took to bring our planet into orbit with its star, its Sol mate. It manifested in the evolution of millions of species: including you and me.

Lovers, poets, spiritual teachers, philosophers, and even neuroscientists, have tried to define love, to discover its origins. If I had a definition of human love, it would be something like, “a felt experience of Oneness with all things.” All things. I love my husband of almost 50 years who died on this date in 2018. I love my family and friends. I love my morning tea, my computer, and my favorite pillow, and science, music, art, animals and plants, dragonflies and sunsets, seasons in Ohio, and I love our Kendal community. I feel a loving oneness with all that inhabits my world. I don’t love my computer in the same way that I love my family. But I love how it allows me to easily write down my thoughts and to find new information. I can reach out to people living far from me, strangers and beloveds alike.

I am also of the belief that human fear is the opposite of love. Fear of loss grows into ideas and actions of hatred to protect against the pain of loss. Losing control, losing power, fame and wealth, losing your home and country, your health and your life- these losses elicit strong responses from all of us- and yes, from me, when me and mine are endangered. How dare this current wave of horrors change the way I live my life? or threaten the life of my special needs daughter or the future of my grandchildren? I hate what is happening….

Do I love the actions of those people who are purposely destroying life as I know it? No. But still I believe it is the living force of interconnected love that holds our world together. This is so even when I or anyone else behaves in a way that is not life-affirming. I thought I was very bold as a teenager. I hung up a poster my aunt brought me back from Italy that said: Face L’amore Non la Guerra- make love not war. Human love isn’t all passive hearts and rainbows. Love can be channeled into fiercely creative resistance and purposeful action. Many leaders and teachers throughout history have lost their lives while standing up for non-violence, or for compassion, not retribution- all for the love of truth and justice.

I just reread a book that I hadn’t read in years. It migrated with me from NY state to Ohio and was languishing on my shelf. The Forty Rules of Love, was written by the famous Turkish female author Elaf Shafak. It is a novel about the thirteenth century Sufi poet, Rumi. She tells his story as it intertwines unexpectedly with the experience of a modern-day Massachusetts housewife. It won’t give anything away to read you the last lines in the book. I will end with Shafak’s words that say all I really want to say about love.

“It’s Rule Number Forty”, she said slowly. “A life without love is of no account. Don’t ask yourself what kind of love you should seek, spiritual or material, divine or mundane, Eastern or Western…Divisions only lead to more divisions. Love has no labels or definitions. It is what it is, pure and simple.

“Love is the water of life. And a lover is a soul of fire!

The universe turns differently when fire loves water.”

I hope everyone reading this will celebrate love, large and small, in any way that you can.