“Some say love, it is a river that drowns the tender reed
Some say love, it is a razor that leaves your soul to bleed
Some say love, it is a hunger an endless aching need
I say love, it is a flower and you, its only seed”

The Rose – Bette Midler/Wynonna Judd duet – mobile

The Rose – duet – desktop

This is one of my favorite songs ever. It’s a beautiful tune, achingly beautiful with a powerful message and incredible lyrics. 

I can listen to it every single day, and I usually do, and never get tired of it. 

There can be no better person to sing the song than Bette Midler. Her voice is stunning! 

In this version, both girls do an amazing job singing it, beautiful voices and passion! And it’s beautiful how they sing it together. Their friendship with one another is so sweet! Both women seem like loving and funny, lovely  ladies who are probably so much fun to know! ❤

The song never fails to give me chills no matter how often I listen to it.

It's interesting because I have loved the song for as long as I can remember but never as much as I do now. I used to listen to it when it would be playing but did not feel the startling beauty to the depth that I now do. 

Then one day recently it came on youtube and start playing right after another song I put on ended(I think a Phil Collins song). It's a live version(I don't usually like those but this I LOVE and when I love a live version of a song, I really love it, live ones can be even better than studio ones because they can be more passionate and candid along with the audience's love & passion). It struck me with its fierce beauty and I am now hooked forever. 

It's a beautiful contemplation of what love is, the different ways people define it and all of them can seem to be accurate but the best description, the true one, I think, is the one the singer describes.  

"Love is a flower and you its only seed"

I don't agree that love hurts or cuts or kills but it can seem that way. When we love someone who doesn't love us back, whether it's in a romantic or platonic way, when we love someone who dies or someone who is suffering, it can be agony. Like these lyrics, it can feel like the very soul of us is slashed and bleeding.  But it's not the love itself that hurts, it's attachment, other things mixed with love, tainting it, that feels like it's slashing our soul to shreds. Love only heals, only liberates. It never hurts. Rejection hurts, being abandoned hurts, grief hurts, loss hurts, attachment hurts and so these things involving it hurts. Those things are not love; they are just associated with it. Pure love heals. Pure love sets us free. Pure love is bliss. 

Pure love is wanting someone to be happy with or without us even if those people are with others. Pure love is letting go when we must. Pure love is giving to others, helping, inspiring, expecting nothing in return. 

Love serves; it doesn’t cling. Clinginess dilutes it.

Love is also a state of BEing, a state of living, a state of existing, an essence. There doesn't always have to be a specific target of our love. We can just feel love coursing through our veins like the very blood that sustains us. When we engage in activities we love, activities that inspire us, liberate us, we live in love. 

Love can also be an affection or feeling, a verb/action, wanting others to be happy,  when we reach out to others, to help, to heal, to uplift, to inspire… we reach out in love. Love can be self love, romantic, platonic, or universal, all encompassing love, love for all sentient beings, love for the uni-verse and all it contains, love for life itself. 

Love is a flower and we are the seeds. The seed that blossoms into love. We have the potential to bloom just like a beautiful flower. 

We are responsible for the "seeds" we plant. 
Every word we say, thought we think, action we take is a seed.

When we plant seeds of love, it's love that blooms eventually. 

When we think loving thoughts, perform loving actions, speak genuine loving words, they blossom into Love. 

We aren't responsible for what others do, only what we do. When other people do not act in a loving manner, we can still choose to act in love, live in love. This doesn't mean others are getting over on us or that we are being a pushover or don't have a backbone. As long as we live in love and don't let things outside of the self get to us, we are empowered no matter what is done to us. 

"It's the heart, afraid of breaking that never learns to dance
It's the dream, afraid of waking that never takes the chance
It's the one who won't be taken who cannot seem to give
And the soul, afraid of dying that never learns to live"

This is an important and poignant message about taking chances, being open and welcoming all that life is and can give, a reminder to love and live and to give even through the fear and pain and loss. 

It's better to take chances and lose and fall and truly live than to build up walls out of fear of losing and experiencing pain.

Life itself is a beautiful blessing and why resist it just to avoid pain? If we shield our selves against the risk of losing and heartbreak and falling then we also close our self off to the possibility of deep experience, love, all the blessings in this life. It's true if we don't take chances and risk pain then we likely won't be hurt as deeply but then we won't feel happiness or love as deeply either. 

And to experience deep love is worth the risk of deep pain & loss. 

We are blessed to be alive, let's take advantage of this beautiful gift! We can learn to live with and cope with pain & loss and still be happy. 

It's worth the chance! ❤

😀

This goes for anything, the risk of "failing" after amazing success, the risk of losing someone to a breakup or death or drifting apart, the risk of trying and not succeeding as we planned, the risk of having a great job then losing it, the risk of reaching out and being rejected…anything. To have is to eventually lose but that is ok, it's just part of living. Most things come to an end, some more tragically and unexpectedly than others but change & end is the nature of things, part of the essence of life. 
So let's cherish it while we still have it and be prepared as much as possible for when it ends. Nothing and no one is really ours forever. While it's scary and heartbreaking, it's just the truth. 
Let's experience it fully now and have less regrets and more experience later.

"When the night has been too lonely and the road has been too long
And you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong
Just remember in the winter far beneath the bitter snow
Lies the seed that with the sun's love, in the spring becomes the rose"

Love is for everyone, not just the lucky & the strong. Everyone. ❤

With love(all love, not just romantic love), we are all lucky & strong. 

There's always hope, always love. Everyone has the capacity to love and the chance to be loved. 

Isn't this song breathtaking?! The music, her voice, the lyrics, the concept…it's perfect!  

I think of this as a universal love song. 

"Love is a flower and you its only seed"

Here is the non live version:

The Rose – Bette Midler – mobile

The Rose – Bette Midler – desktop

Much love & light to you, always! 

{——-{——@ ❤ ❤ 

~Hugs~

Xoxo Kim