Years ago, we found these words from the late, amazing Anne Herbert at Peace and Love and Noticing the Details.  We’d never really thought of what a Valentine heart could mean beyond a general feeling and expression of love, or how to make it extend far beyond romantic love. Anne greatly expanded our view…

Read a Valentine heart shape from top to bottom. and it says the two can become one.

Read it from bottom to top, and it says the one can become two with the two still connected.

Read a Valentine heart shape as a whole, and it says wholeness is a place to live with room inside for the liquid of life and many adventures.

There are seventeen reasons why I feel good today, and I mostly don’t know what they are.

About twelve are related to relating to you. Like reason six is a good thing that I didn’t have before we connected.

Reason seven is a good thing I did have before, but because of being connected to you, it’s stronger.

You know.

Herbert was a poet at heart and we view this as a Valentine poem.  Many of the lines are giveable to people we care about, whether lover or friend, especially this one:

Read a Valentine heart shape as a whole, and it says wholeness is a place to live with room inside for the liquid of life and many adventures.

 

It’s certainly a lovely way to think about about the hearts that are all around us today, like the one chalked on a boulder in a Harlem park….