Communion: The Female Search for Love
Querida Amiga,
Another week, another sign from the universe.
I am a lover of books. Good old fashioned paperbacks that I write all over and stack around my home. I always say books are my journals. I fill the pages with my reflections and questions. Often times I buy books faster than I can read them.
A few years ago I bought bell hooks’ trilogy on the meaning of love in American culture. I devoured All About Love: New Visions and then moved on to other books and did not read the other two in the trilogy.
Last week I was feeling the need to deeply contemplate love. I started a couple of my days with guided meditations about love. One afternoon I was sitting at my desk mindlessly staring away from my computer. Something caught my eye on a bookcase, bell hooks’ book Communion: The Female Search for Love. I immediately took it off the shelf and knew it was not an accident that it stood out among the piles.
This book is exactly what I need right now as I ponder what it means to be a powerful woman who loves herself deeply through healing and allows herself to be nurtured by others.
I am only 20 pages in and the pages are covered with underlining, thoughts in the margins, and hearts next to paragraphs I know I will return to for further contemplation. There is part of a line that gave me pause. I had to double underline it and cover the margin next to it with my thoughts.
New and visionary ways to think about love.
Paving new paths for myself and other Latinas is not limited to professional pursuits. Visioning and manifesting new ways of being extends to all parts of our lives where we want to thrive. I am currently yearning for new possibilities for what love is and how it manifests in our lives.
Love is so much more than romantic relationships. It begins with self-love and radiates out to expand as it engages with others radiating self-love. As I continue reading and reflecting deeply I want to envision a new journey of love for Latinas from rebirth within to outward reflections of known value, love, and worth.
As bell hooks’ writes, “We long to be loved and we long to be free.” May our journeys lead us to love ourselves more than anyone else possibly could, and that love also lead to our liberation from the approval of others.
Quiero saber de ti. How do you want to expand your vision of what love is?
Un Abrazo,
Michelle
P.S. I have had requests for some time now for us to start a Thriving Chingonas book club. This book showing up at the right time feels like it is also a sign to get a book club kicked off for our community.
Shoot me an email if you are interested in reading Communion: The Female Search for Love as part of a Thriving Chingonas book club. Respond to this email to let me know you are in and your availability to meet. I’ll figure out when we meet and how often based on the response. Excited to read with you and be in deep conversation around how we can collectively create a new vision for love.
