What is love - really?

Antonio Canova sculpture -
Psyche Revived By Cupids Kiss 

This question is so personal that all I can give you is my opinion tainted and bolstered by my experience. But before I do that I would like to share what some notable characters have felt is the nature of love.

I am particularly fond of Kahlil Gibran's verse:
"It is wrong to think that love comes from long companionship and persevering courtship. Love is the offspring of spiritual affinity and unless that affinity is created in a moment, it will not be created for years or even generations."

George Gershwin:

"For suddenly, I saw you there
And through foggy London town
The sun was shining everywhere..."

Franz Schubert:
"Some people come into our lives, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never the same.”

Lao Tsu:
"Love is of all passions the strongest, for it attacks simultaneously the head, the heart, and the senses."

Aristotle:
"Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies."

I have to agree with Aristotle and Kahlil Gibran. For love to last, for it to be consistently nourishing to both parties, for it to obliterate jealousy, doubt, fear and anger, for it to elevate the soul, it has to be a spiritual affinity, a spark, both instant and eternal.



Too many people do not discover this kind of love though they search for it. And - here it comes - in my opinion, the other half of your soul can only come into your life when you are ready. When you know who you are, when you love yourself, when you accept yourself, your past, your failings, your future. When you acknowledge your own uniqueness.

This self love opens the door, sends out the signal for the other part of your soul to come home. Then the fog burns away and Gershwin's London is full of sunshine, your body, mind and soul are attacked by the passion of love and you are never again the same.