Love is not cake.
Cake is something you have to slice into pieces in order to share... how big a piece does everyone get, is there enough to go round?
I remember many years ago how a group of us would drop off our children to preschool and then take our second time round pregnant bellies down for a Swedish "fika" (coffee/tea and a bun or something else yummy) and the conversation led to an anxiety the other mothers had about whether they had enough love for a second child...
I looked at them with eyes wide... did they really think that I only half loved each of my twin daughters? That love was finite and that I shared this amount between them? They saw me look at them and paused... and I told them that there was always enough love to love each child completely.
Love is more of a fungus.
For the majority of the time it is hidden and out of view, but that does not mean the love is not there... it's just not always noticeable by others. Kisses, hugs, words and other gestures are like mushrooms popping up through the surface to make themselves known, the fungus does this to release their spores.
Under the ground the fungus grows and entangles with everything else there... a giant ever evolving network of connection with other fungus, but also with trees. Symbiotic relationships.
In a community this is what we should be striving for. A kind of symbiosis so that we all thrive. An entangled love that is not always visible, but surfaces with a smile, the holding of hands, kind words... by a parent, teacher, friend or partner. What kind of fungus that pops up will depend on what kind of love expression is appropriate for that relationship. In the end it's all love. Those invisible threads holding us all together.
A healthy forest will have a great diversity of fungus.
Just as a healthy society will have many kinds of love expressions. From parents nurturing their children, teachers caring for their students, friends appreciating each other's company and lovers' passion.
It's all rooted in love.
it's not limited - it is continually expanding, reaching out, entangling and engaging with everything around it.
Just as clearcutting a forest also negatively impacts the forest floor and the mycelium web, so does neglect, isolation and othering negatively impact the individual. Cutting off from community and reducing the ability to thrive. My work with early years educators has often been about empowering them to empower the children. I live in an area of Stockholm that is historically famous for candle-making, and there have been times when I have handed out candles as symbols of empowerment. That my workshop/presentation is like a lit candle, and that they can each lean their wick towards mine to light their own. This does not take my light from me. In the same way we empower children to feel the self-confidence, self esteem that comes from autonomy. This does not take power away from the adult, or responsibility, it merely makes our collective power stronger. As I read somewhere, one pair of bamboo chopsticks can be easy to snap, but many together become almost impossible to break.
I see love in the same way. A kind of power that becomes stronger and bigger the more people love (in their different ways) together. Love empowers. Jools Page writes about professional love - a much needed emotion in work-places, especially with children. Not a love that is in competition with parental love, but one that empowers it, by empowering the child.
Just as the trees, the fungi, the animals, the plants are all stronger by being part of the forest (or any natural, diverse ecosystem) and weaker if we isolate or remove the trees, or the animals, or the plants, or the fungi... the interdependence is what makes them all individually strong.
Rhyzomatic love. Complex, entangled, interconnected. Mycelium.
Interacting with the fungi. The pen did not work as well as I had hoped on the puffball, in part it was a little damp and also because if you pressed too much the hollow interior would puff out the spores... So I took a leaf of clover and split it, drew one two circles and placed them as eyes.