Loving Out Loud
In the archive of the heart, all love is forever.
Hello friends,
First, this week’s show: I had the joy of having Dr. Alan Lightman (Einstein's Dreams, The Transcendant Brain +20 other important works) on the Rose Woman podcast. I’m a 30-year fangirl of Dr. Lightman, a distinguished MIT physicist, novelist, and essayist, who has invested a lifetime exploring the intersection of science and wonder. His latest book, the Miraculous from the Material has just come out. In this episode, he shares personal reflections on the value of mystery, his own unity consciousness experience and the role of humility in science. We ground into the scientific explanations of inherently beautiful phenomena (eg, rainbows, the Aurora Borealis, hummingbird flight) while maintaining a certain awe. We discuss his upcoming novel, which points at preparing for “nothingness” through the perspectives of various disciplines, inspired by his own reflections on aging and what constitutes a meaningful life. We also explore beauty as an evolutionary trait and its broader implications on human perception, alongside discussions about Homo sapiens evolving into a “techno” species and ethical considerations of such transformations. If you’re not a regular, the Rose Woman comes out each week and is a top 5% podcast worldwide- there are episodes for everyone and I would love for you to peruse and find some that speak to you.
Second, Did you know I host a once a month online Sunday session called “Good Community”? It’s free or by donation to our monthly charity. This month we are supporting Tiruvannamalai flood relief.
On to today’s writing, on expressing the joy of romantic and erotic love, without reservation, and on finding ways to experience, redefine, amplify and expand how we might be with the incredible life force energy of being in love as a sort of fluid omni-relatedness. Let me know how it hits you.
With joy,
Christine
Loving Out Loud
1: J1
The first thing I feel is warmth—not the sun, not the blankets, but J. His skin, his emanation, his breathing calm deep aliveness. The room smells faintly of sleep, of us, of the night giving way to morning. He stirs, a lazy arm draping over my waist, and curls in. I open my eyes to see his face in the early light, softened by sleep, new but somehow infinitely familiar. His hand rests on my hip. Whispers: mine. Whispers: stay. Whispers: safety rest belonging permission. My shins entwine and lock him in, in the exhale is all the longing and release of the ages. The world narrows to mouths, hands, the press of bodies, the tangle of sheets, all grinning and light and easy.
Okay, yes, for this moment I’m love drunk. You know this feeling, right? Where you notice everything—for me right now it’s the deep resonance of his low-register voice, the tiniest details of his gait and stance. Every small thing I like about him is amplified. I can’t imagine ever having enough of kissing his face, and I have sudden urges to climb on top of him, part jungle gym and part feral cat wanting to pounce. You know this, right? Like you can’t hold the joy?
2: Running the Pattern
Then, over morning coffee, I get a little slap in my cute permasmiley face from the timeline scroll: “On this day, eight years ago…” There’s me and my sweetheart of an ex, glowing in a weefie. The caption brims with certainty and hope. The comments are full of friends cheering us on, strangers rooting for a happy ending.
I feel tenderness looking back on it—and then, something else. What is that? Shame? Doubt? A whisper: Didn’t you think it was forever then too, which comes with a barely there figment of failure, a subtle moment of worry that I’m delusional or naive. But why I would ever be embarrassed by love, why I would ever hesitated to celebrate this peak human joy, to shout it out loud. That was then, that was beautiful. And this is now, this is beautiful.
Is this familiar? Many of us have been on social media for two decades, and private emotions have merged with public presentation. We witness and share in our friends joy, heartbreak, blame, resolution, and often in the trying again. We celebrate connection while also having a front row seat to struggle. Over time, the moments of proclamation—the “forevers,” the glowing posts— become part of a familiar arc of a story that we know, follow, and even anticipate. I have found that seeing similar stories play out repeatedly makes me wonder if we are all just running a pattern.
But I know in my deepest heart that’s not true.
We are wired for loving all the time, forever and always. Each new relationship offers the chance to experience something fresh, something shaped by who we’ve become. Even if patterns seem familiar, no two loves are ever truly the same. Each person, each connection, brings something distinct. The story shifts, because we shift. Love asks us to trust in connection and possibility, again and again. If we can integrate the things that happen in relationship, and come with fresh eyes, we have such joy in store.
3: The Too Small Story
That idea comes up against some pretty deep stories, though. We’re offered one particular story that true love should be certain, permanent, and complete, as though it’s a singular achievement that defines our worth and happiness. I still have some tether to the grand narrative of “happily ever after,” the one-and-done fairy tale where love’s arrival marks the end of the story. When we proclaim love publicly, it’s often with that story in mind. In this worldview, we lean into the promise: This one is forever. When it ends, we don’t just grieve the love—we grieve the story. The arc of joy, expectation, and dissolution can feel like a betrayal of the collective myth about what love is supposed to be. I’d rather see those declarations as reminders of the courage it takes to love openly, to celebrate something vulnerable, knowing it might not last.
But here’s where I’m going with this whole thing: The story we’ve been telling ourselves about love is too small.
Love is often framed as a scarce resource—find it, secure it, and don’t let it slip away. This scarcity mindset feeds the grasping for certainty, the desperate need for permanence- that kind of makes us contour ourselves to get and keep love. Maybe we cling to the idea of “forever” because we’re afraid that if this love ends, there won’t be another. Or worse, that each ending chips away at our ability to believe in love at all. But love doesn’t need to be sliced and rationed. Love is abundant, infinite in its ability to renew and transform, and never runs out.
4: Radical Dancing
The world is beginning to challenge old narratives about the fairy tale, and the accompanying narrative of breaking up. Polyamory, friends with benefits, pods, chosen families, serial monogamy—these models disrupt the singular “happily ever after” ideal. They frame love as fluid, dynamic, and diverse. Polyamory shows us that love can expand without diminishing—that loving one person doesn’t erase the capacity to love another. Friends with benefits remind us that intimacy can be meaningful without permanence. Pods and chosen families redefine love as community care, expanding connection beyond traditional romance. Serial monogamy honors the truth that love can be perfect for a season, even if it isn’t lifelong.
These models invite us to see love as abundant, evolving, and resilient. They shift the focus from permanence to presence.
Maybe the problem isn’t that love changes, but that we cling to the idea it shouldn’t.
We feel so good in love because it’s alive. We are awake to each other, we are in discovery, we are in presence. To be not present is to be deadened, living in shadow Static is dead; evolutionary things move and change.
5: The New Forever
Yes, I thought that was forever. I think it’s forever this time too. Because it is: both of those things are true. But it doesn’t mean rocking on a porch at 90.
It means that love is permanently in situ. It becomes a place, it has coordinates. It is a tattoo on the timeline of this life. It doesn’t need permanence to be unforgettable, it exists outside of time, it lasts in ways we don’t expect. It’s often cyclical, fragmented, rising and falling, and if we stay conscious, it can find its way into many unexpected forms.
In the archive of the heart, all love is forever.
6: J2
So, yes, I am in wonder right now, with this gorgeous friend. I am showing up, no withholds, and saying it out loud: Isn’t he lovely? Isn’t he wonderful? We are currently making a run at winter, at Brooklyn, at morning eggs and thick bread, at walking and subways and close-quartered rhythms, and discovering the omgyes-yes-yesses and the hell-no-nevers, the what’s-that-come-again-maybes, shapeshifting in unexpected ways. It’s utterly right and utterly perfect and utterly wrong and illogical all at once and still we let the animal body love what it loves, which is this moment right now. I am having a stupid deep time with this human and his little hot water bottle of a Scottish terrier and his gorgeous friends. I have asked, for both of us, the blessings of radical open hearts, complete generosity and mutuality unabridged by grasping or possession.
7: The Peace Piece
And this is also true: I am no longer just a person in love. What it arising in these days is that I feel I am love. It moves in, through, and as me.
May I, may we, be brave— not hardened or jaded— and celebrate it all as it comes, uplift all the beings we care about, sit in our web of beauty and marvel at how many forms the divine spark can take and how lucky we are to be connected to these particular ones.
In Big G Gratitude for life, and the chance to be alive in a body.
To your deepest peace.
Shanti Shanti Shanti.
