WHAT IS PRIMORDIAL LOVE?
Primordial Love is the heart of my work.
It is not sentiment, nor doctrine, nor a belief in something.
It is essential.
It is my lived understanding of the nature of all reality.
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When I was 18, I saw Jesus in the hallway of my college dormitory. It was peaceful. It was real. I didn't know what to do. I told no one for many years. But this initiating experience began an instruction: non-physical reality is real.
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Years ago, sitting beside a pond, I saw my image in the water. Sitting up and looking around the garden I was sitting in, I realized something simple and irreversible: the water reflected my image, but the stone and the tree did not.
Hmmm.
The reflective quality of water revealed a truth that the stone and the tree could not — all things reflect each other.
And…
I am in the water, the stone, and the tree, and they are in me.
And…
“Reflection” is not just about the surface.
Reflection speaks to the relational quality of the universe.
Nothing is separate.
Nothing is alone.
All things are, by nature, intimately intertwined — and one.
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On the heels of this realization, I woke one morning with a clear, visual image before me: a vast, rotating universe.
At the center was all potential.
At the center was unconditional love.
Moving out from the center were colors I knew — and had never known before.
Reality — moving out from the center like a fractal — a self-same repeating pattern of form and formlessness, continually emerging.
All things, all of reality, are this Love.
All things arise from it and are made of it.
This primordial, unconditional Love.
And then a word came —
Yes
Yes to the entirety of existence.
Yes to form and formlessness.
Yes to matter and energy.
Yes to life continually unfolding.
Yes to Love.
The Yes was not dogmatic approval.
It was felt, joyful affirmation.
All things are brought into being within this field.
Nothing stands outside it.
The luminous and the terrible.
The beautiful and the broken.
Not divided.
Not abandoned.
All held within the timeless oneness of a loving reality.
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More recently, and while in the wilderness, I experienced with my mind’s eye and in my heart that nature represents a “pure land” of spirit.
From a short distance away, I saw two magnificent elk moving through the forest. They paused and turned to look at me. They were so clearly in their home — and not just that, in the oneness. We held one another’s gaze for what felt like a long while, and then they slowly merged into the shadows of the trees.
Further down the path stood a tall pine — scraggly and worn, lit by the afternoon sun. Standing in its presence, I sensed its inner essence. Though there was space between us, there was no separation. We were touching. We were the same — nature — and we were one.
Untouched nature illuminates oneness, connection, and the reality of love through its physical presence and stillness.
Nature is our home — our primal relationship.
Nature reminds us that we breathe, touch, move, and die — which is important, because the teachings and practices of religion and spirituality may attempt to rob us of our physicality.
We are not just spirit but body.
We are not just body, but spirit.
We are both.
An aware, consciously lived life honors and nurtures this union — this one.
Reconnecting with nature returns us to a deep truth: we participate in a living, loving, ever-changing relationship with the Whole.
Teachings and practices that expand awareness of the non-physical essence of who we are — without excluding the physical — support our experience of this truth.
Primordial Love is this.
These realizations have woven themselves into my being — the ground and light of what I offer you.
Infinite Potential
Belonging
Embodiment and Spirit
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[This image of a fractal is about the nearest facsimile to the vision of the universe I had that morning in my bedroom. It was created by Nathan Smith, and he graciously gave me permission to share it. You can find his work at: https://www.deviantart.com/digitalart/popular-all-time/?q=NATHAN+SMITH&offset=0 ]
