I wanna know what love is....

[Clover]

Originally Posted by 7luminaries

Love is.
Love is what we are.
Be here now. Be love now.


7L

Cosigned! .

[davidsun]

Shedding some light on the subject (more available at https://getpocket.com/explore/item/k...=pocket-newtab ):

Originally Posted by Kahlil Gibran

Think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.”

“Love is the quality of attention we pay to things,” poet J.D. McClatchy wrote in his beautiful meditation on the contrast and complementarity of love and desire. And what we choose to attend to — our fear or our faith, our woundedness or our devotion to healing — determines the quality of our love. How we navigate our oscillation between these inescapable polarities is governed by the degree of courage, openness, and vulnerability with which we are willing to show up for and to our own hearts. “The alternations between love and its denial,” philosopher Martha Nussbaum observed in contemplating the difficulty of knowing ourselves, “constitute the most essential and ubiquitous structural feature of the human heart.”

[davidsun]

Here's a link to a personal account of deeply experienced and expressed 'love' which I think meaningfully 'reveals' what 'love' is (and isn't!):

https://progressivechristianity.org/...-does-not-die/

[Miss Hepburn]

Love seems to be when endorphins in my brain make me crazy.

[davidsun]

Originally Posted by Miss Hepburn

Love seems to be when endorphins in my brain make me crazy.

Methinks you might have mentally misidentified and so reversed 'cause' and 'effect' here. That is a not uncommon happening at least.

[inavalan]

Originally Posted by Honza

....I want you to show me.

That is most peoples approach to the matter.

The spiritual people start singing - I wanna know what love is, I think I can show me.

Taking responsibility for the matter of course.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raNGeq3_DtM

Foreigner guitarist Mick Jones wrote this song. He tsai: "'I Want To Know What Love Is' started off on more of a personal level. I'd been through a lot of relationships that eventually failed, and still searching for something that could really endure. And that sort of took a life of its own as well. It became more of a universal feeling. I adjusted that during the recording of it, and ended up putting a gospel choir on it. And you know, realized suddenly that I'd written almost a spiritual song, almost a gospel song. Sometimes, you feel like you had nothing to do with it, really. You're just putting it down on paper, or coming up with a melody that will bring the meaning of the song out, bring the emotion out in the song."

Jones' relationship that sparked the song was with his then future wife Ann Dexter-Jones.

... Foreigner recorded for Atlantic Records, and their 1981 album 4 spent more weeks at #1 than any album released by the label.

... This is one of several very popular songs that was used on the first season of Miami Vice, appearing in the 1985 episode "Rites of Passage."

Lyrics:

I gotta take a little time
A little time to think things over
I better read between the lines
In case I need it when I'm older

This mountain I must climb
Feels like a world upon my shoulders
Through the clouds I see love shine
It keeps me warm as life grows colder

In my life there's been heartache and pain
I don't know if I can face it again
I can't stop now, I've traveled so far
To change this lonely life

I wanna know what love is
I want you to show me
I wanna feel what love is
I know you can show me

I'm gonna take a little time
A little time to look around me
I've got nowhere left to hide
It looks like love has finally found me

In my life there's been heartache and pain
I don't know if I can face it again
I can't stop now, I've traveled so far
To change this lonely life

I wanna know what love is
I want you to show me
I wanna feel what love is
I know you can show me

I wanna know what love is
I want you to show me
And I wanna feel, I want to feel what love is
And I know, I know you can show me

Let's talk about love
I wanna know what love is, the love that you feel inside
I want you to show me, and I'm feeling so much love
I wanna feel what love is, no, you just cannot hide
I know you can show me, yeah

I wanna know what love is, let's talk about love
I want you to show me, I wanna feel it too
I wanna feel what love is, I want to feel it too
And I know and I know, I know you can show me
Show me love is real, yeah
I wanna know what love is...

Writer: Michael Leslie Jones

[inavalan]

My all time favorite love song:

The Power Of Love
by Jennifer Rush
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAr_9dBmoPA

US chart-topper from 1985, this "Power Of Love" is a soaring ballad that Jennifer Rush took to #1 in the UK. In 1994, Celine Dion's version went to #1 in America.

The song is rather dramatic, with a cold vocal intro that reads like a romance novel:

The whispers in the morning
Of lovers sleeping tight
Are rolling like thunder now
As I look in your eyes

Ultimately, the "power of love" soothes the singer, giving her the strength to carry on:

Suddenly the feeling that I can't go on
Is light years away

Jennifer Rush wrote the lyric about her boyfriend, the Harvard graduate Steven Engebretson. She said he was just her second boyfriend; the couple was still together long after the song was released.

Lyrics:

The whispers in the morning
Of lovers sleeping tight
Are rolling by like thunder now
As I look in your eyes

I hold on to your body
And feel each move you make
Your voice is warm and tender
A love that I could not forsake

'Cause I'm your lady
And you are my man
Whenever you reach for me
I'll do all that I can

Even though there may be times
It seems I'm far away
Well, never wonder where I am
'Cause I am always by your side

'Cause I'm your lady
And you are my man
Whenever you reach for me
I'll do all that I can

We're heading for something
Somewhere I've never been
Sometimes I am frightened
But I'm ready to learn
Of the power of love

The sound of your heart beating
Made it clear suddenly
The feeling that I can't go on
Is light years away

'Cause I'm your lady
And you are my man
Whenever you reach for me
I'm gonna do all that I can

We're heading for something
Somewhere I've never been
Sometimes I am frightened
But I'm ready to learn
Of the power of love
Ooh, the power of love

Writers: Wolfgang Detmann, Jennifer Rush, Mary Susan Applegate, Gunther Mende

[BigJohn]

Love is found in many areas but you can find her is such diverse areas as to when you see a person overlooking another person's shortcomings, a teacher helping a student, the twinkling in the eyes, etc.

She is always there but not always noticed.

[davidsun]

Great, very meaningfull (to me) lyrics, Inavalan!

Tangentially, brought this poem, titled "The Invitation" (copied from http://www.oriahmountaindreamer.com/ ) back to mind:

It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon...
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.

I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.

It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”

It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the centre of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.

Love in its purest form is infinite and unconditional.