Is it just me or have Valentine’s Day products been on the shelves since like Christmas Eve? Let’s not even get started on the corporate consumerism of it all, because while true, that sounds draining and stressful. I want to talk little bit about real love. I’m sure all the retailers and date night spots would like you to believe that love is something you can buy.  Or at the very least, that you have to spend money to prove your love adequately. But we all know that love is one of those things that can’t be bought. Love can’t be defined. Love can never fully be expressed or contained. Artists, poets, philosophers, filmmakers and humans throughout all of history have tried to capture something that seems to be futile to the ineffability and infinity of love. Behind the candles, dessert menus, and manufactured romance this week lies an invitation to explore an eternal mystery:

What is love?

Like, really….what is it? And how do we begin to grasp its infinite depth?

A Brief History of Valentine’s Day

The origins of Valentine’s Day are hazy, and a bit jumbled together from history, legend, and myth. The most famous tale tells of St. Valentine, a priest in 3rd-century Rome. Emperor Claudius II had placed a ban on marriage for young soldiers. Our boy Valentine risking everything, he performed secret weddings, believing that love transcended law, empire, and even death. For this, he was put to death on February 14th, and his legacy grew into a celebration of love.

But long before St. Valentine, around the same date in February was Lupercalia. Lupercalia was an ancient Roman festival of fertility, passion, and renewal. It was a time when love was understood as something untamed and primal, honestly maybe even a bit brutal at times. They saw love as a force woven into the very fabric of existence.

From the earliest days of human history, love never seems to be merely sentimental or easy to capture with words.

Love is…  Sacred.

Esoteric.

Transformative.

It is the fire that has bound hearts, shattered oppression, and opened doorways to the divine throughout eternity.

Ancient Wisdom on Love

Traditions across the world have long understood love as more than an emotion and more than human attachment or pair bonding. Love is the gravitational force of our souls, the spiritual thread stitching all things together, the current that carries us back home.

• The Taoist Perspective: Love is the dance of Yin and Yang, the interplay of opposites. It is not about possession or control but balance—allowing the other to be fully themselves while remaining fully yourself. Love is not static. Love is found in the flow, in surrendering to the harmony of existence.

• Hindu Teachings: The Bhagavad Gita speaks of bhakti, a love that transcends the physical and becomes devotion to the divine in all things. To love another fully is to see God within them, to recognize that every face is a reflection of the infinite. Namaste.

• Jewish Mysticism (Kabbalah): In Kabbalah, love (ahavah) is not just an emotion but an act of giving, a channel through which divine energy flows. The more we give of ourselves, the more we reflect the divine essence that permeates all things. Love expands the soul, dissolving the illusion of separateness from God.

Jesus and the Way of Love

Jesus did not just teach love; he embodied it. And not the pretty pink love of overpriced greeting cards, but a love so radical, so boundary-shattering, that it turned the world upside down.

• “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This is not just an ethical rule—it is a deeper truth about our connection to one another. The boundaries we perceive between our selves, “me” and “them”,  are not as solid as they seem. When we love another, we reflect that love within ourselves. When we harm another, we diminish something within our own soul.

• “Love your enemies.” Jesus knew that love isn’t about being deserving. It isn’t earned. It is not a transaction. Love simply is—a force that flows freely, without condition, because love is the very nature of God. And aligning ourselves with that spirit, living in this way can heal ourselves and those around us. 

• “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” I truly don’t think that this is merely about physical sacrifice—but about something far deeper: the surrender of the self we construct, the one bound by ego and illusion. The one that sees itself as separate. To love is to release that false self and step into the greater reality of connection. It is letting go of the masks we wear, the pride that separates us, and the fear that keeps us from recognizing the deep river that flows through us all. 

Love as the Bridge to the Divine

Love is not something we possess. It possesses us. It moves through us like breath, like light, like the pulse of the universe itself.

To love deeply is to see beyond the illusion of separateness. To love fully is to recognize the divine in every face, in every moment, in every breath. Love is not a reward. It is not a prize to be won. It is not earned. Love simply is. It is the essence from which we come and to which we return.

An Invitation to Love More Fully

This Valentine’s Day, go beyond the surface-level expressions of love. I’m hoping that we expand our love beyond romance—to the stranger, to the enemy, to the earth itself. To love with the reckless abandon of mystics, the unwavering devotion of sages, and the boundless generosity of the Source from which all love flows.

Whisper a blessing to someone in silence. Speak love into the world, even to those who may not return it. Reject fear. Love your enemies. See the divine in the ordinary—in the eyes of a friend, in the face of a stranger, in the reflection staring back at you in the mirror.

Let love not be a fleeting feeling, but the very path that leads us home.

Because in the end, love is not something we give or receive.

Love is who we are.

Love is who I Am.