As every year, February 14 has come round again. In the streets we see any number of signs reminding us of it: the red dresses, the red and white teddy bears, the chocolates, the heart-shaped gift boxes, the decorations bearing the image of love, and so on. In short, it is very quickly noticeable that there is "love in the air". Although some say that Valentine’s Day is a commercial holiday, a pagan feast for others, and although a good many people, sometimes called stingy, imply that with them Valentine’s Day is every day of the year, we all agree, women and men alike, that the days around February 14 carry a symbolism tied to the celebration of love.
But what do we really mean by "celebrating love"? That is what we shall try to answer in this article.
Celebrating love means saying I love you to the person we love.
This is that person with whom you have gone through the four phases of love. You have the blessing of being together and of carrying on a relationship you have built, or are still building. In your case, celebrating love would be to restate your feelings to them; to tell them how much you cherish them; how much having them in your life has made all the difference; how many times, without them, you could not have reached certain thresholds or achieved certain goals. For you, celebrating love would take on its fullest meaning in that you would prove to the other, through your words and your gestures, that your feelings are honest, dependable and strengthened by all you have lived through.
Celebrating love means saying I do not love you to the person we do not love.
The reasons why we begin our love relationships are many. I am tempted to strike "love" from the previous sentence, for I do not know whether, in certain cases, we should speak of a love relationship or of a relationship of interest. In every case, one of the parties believes, sometimes very firmly, that the other is living a love relationship with them. At the same time, the other knows that he is playing a game, or that he is after a particular interest, which is generally money, power or sex. In such cases, celebrating love simply comes down to being honest and telling the other that this feeling of love does not exist and never has. It can prove difficult and disappointing. But a disappointment on Monday is worth more than an illusion that lasts until Saturday.
Celebrating love means saying I no longer love you to the person we no longer love.
It is a little hard to own up to, I admit. But another way of celebrating love, true love, is to be consistent with oneself, to align oneself with one’s real "self" and to explain to the other that the feeling of love that once existed has gone. In doing so, you celebrate love for yourself, you celebrate the love of flourishing and of inner peace, you celebrate love of your neighbour by freeing the other from a burden or from an illusion in which they had been living for some time, you choose to set aside pretence and to live an authentic life. You pay homage to true love, to pure love, by undoing ties that are not meant to exist, so as to make yourself ready to welcome the one who will have you celebrate love in the first sense given earlier in this article.
Celebrating love means celebrating God and celebrating oneself.
Another way of celebrating love passes through showing our gratitude towards our God or a higher Being. He is the one through whose help we have accomplished so many things and reached our aims. To celebrate God is to celebrate Love. It is to see, in all creations and all creatures, the divine imprint that has ordered and shaped everything in the most perfect and most finely calibrated way there is. And in all of this, celebrating love is celebrating yourself. Celebrating yourself by treating yourself kindly, by granting yourself a personal moment in the day to thank yourself for all that you do, on your own, for yourself. You are a treasure to be cherished and tended. That is the beginning of happiness. That is the beginning of love. Indeed, if you do not show love to yourself, how could you show it to others? to nature? to God?
In the end, celebrating love is not merely a celebration empty of meaning. It carries its share of implications and consequences. But always towards an optimal well-being in the end.
M. Z.
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