Love Where You Are, Love Who You're With

Dear Rosies,

This week I was walking with a group of retreatants through the Carmo Convent in Lisbon — a Gothic nave open to the sky, arches holding nothing but air and light — when our friend and guest teacher Peter Dawkins, who is just a love bug of a scholar, said with absolute inspired authority: "Love Where You Are, Love Who You're With, Love What You're Doing, All of the Time." The group turned it into rhythm and harmony in minutes.

It occurred to me that this is a more attuned version of Amor Fati — love of fate, love of what is — but without the philosophical armor. Not bearing your life. Not even accepting it. Loving it. Here, now, the ground under your feet, the faces across from you, the thing your hands are already doing.

You might as well give yourself to life right now. Nothing will be lost.

The mind puts us in memory or future projection, auditioning other moments, other places, other versions of the life. The body is here, breathing, warm, alive in this specific afternoon. You can place the body somewhere else and make that choice, too.

Rosebud Woman was always built on one premise: the body is not the obstacle to the sacred. It is the location of it.

So wherever you are — give yourself to it. Nothing will be lost.

With love,

Christine Marie Mason

Founder, Rosebud Woman