Happy Valentines Day!
You probably know this story through random trivia and memes, but here’s the actual history behind it: Today’s celebration is named after a Catholic priest named Valentine who lived in Rome in the 3rd century. During this period, there were many Romans converting into Christianity while the Emperor remained pagan. The emperor decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, so he outlawed marriage for young men.
Valentine defied the Emperor and performed marriages to young soldiers in secret Christian ceremonies. His act was the beginning of his reputation for believing in the importance of love. He was found out and was executed on February 14 in the year 270.
While we get all caught up in the flowers, sweets, and sales – it really goes back to love. Don’t worry, for the single people reading, you don’t have to be in a relationship to celebrate the day of Valentine. What’s really important is loving yourself.
The amount of love you can give to yourself is the same amount that you are willing to receive and give to others.
There is no limit to the love that is available to you. I’m sharing an excerpt of Yogi Bhajan’s lecture on this special day on February 14, 1994:
“Love has two polarities-conditional and unconditional. Conditional love has expectations, which give us pain and joy. Unconditional love gives us ecstasy, self-fulfillment, self-respect, self-esteem, and knowledge of our higher selves. Valentine’s Day is a day of love, true and simple. Unconditional love is the power of the day. Love creates our bountiful, beautiful, and blissful tomorrows and this is God in us. May we go from this years’ Valentine’s Day to next with the grace to make our every action conscious, intelligent, and positive. And may we keep love in our hearts for all, for if we cannot see God in all, we cannot see God at all. Happy Valentine’s Day.”
And on the heels of Valentine’s Day – Mercury Retrograde!
This may sound like a challenge for those who are in new relationships, but it can be made easier if you make time to meditate, reflect, and set intentions.
The retrograde will be from February 17 until March 10, and it is so much more than the communication mishaps, delays in travel and all the other ‘bad luck’ encountered during this period. It’s really the time go inward and do everything that starts with “Re-“ and that reflects, reconsider, review, revisit, renew, restrategize to be sure of what you truly want before moving forward. This will be a good opportunity to take a break and go inward, tune into your heart so you can hear and pay attention to your intuition.
This is the first of a round of three retrogrades this year. The next retrograde periods will be from June 18 to July 12 and October 14 to November 3.
In love or retrograde, you can try doing these classes:
There’s the Scent and Sound Healing on Sunday. Although it’s called to Attract Love, it’s all about opening the heart to increases compassion and sensitivity to others, and to drop emotional defensiveness. We will be releasing karmic relationships.
On Monday, I’ll be teaching a meditation set to help you through the Mercury retrograde period. There are also still slots for the Rebirthing retreat in Siargao if you’d like to join and go deep within to release old energies of the past.
Wishing you clarity, comfort, warmth, understanding. Whether by yourself or with someone else, seize every opportunity you can to bloom.
In loving service,
Rosan
