I know it’s a little early, but my thoughts are turning towards Valentine’s Day. Valentine’s Day, like many of our most beloved holidays, probably started as a pagan celebration. The Romans celebrated the feast of Lupercalia, which focused on…you guessed it…fertility. I will spare you the gory details, but there was a lot of alcohol involved, some rituals that we would consider a bit violent and strange, and some random and temporary couplings. It appears to have been a wild and crazy time for all. A far cry from the romance we associate with Valentine’s Day today.

But who was Saint Valentine? Apparently, there were several of them. One version describes a priest in the mid 200s AD, who performed secret wedding ceremonies for soldiers after Roman Emperor Claudius II banned military men from marrying. A romantic gesture? Yes, but it cost him his life. Claudius had him executed. He was later given the status of martyr by Pope Gelasius in 496 AD on February 14th. An interesting twist to his story supposedly happened while he was in jail. The jailer, having heard that Valentine had the power of faith healing, asked him to heal his blind daughter. And Valentine did! Which leads to my next question…

Can Love Help Us Heal?

One night recently I started to look around for some research on the ways that love affects our ability to heal. It was a relatively broad search, motivated by my continuing movement toward a practice that focuses on generating a particular attitude or energy with my clients, more than on the techniques used. Love and compassion. Radiate love and compassion. Surround people with love and compassion and see what happens. Not new ideas of course, but I’m delving deeper into how those states relate to miraculous healing and how we can create them in our lives, both inside and outside of a practitioner’s space. It got late and I went to bed, without making much headway.

The next morning CNN posted this article by Barbara L. Fredrickson. 10 Things You Might Not Know About Love. This was just what I was looking for. I’d had a successful experience with “nonsearch”! Read more about Love, Healing and Nonsearch…

Wishing you a peaceful heart and a love filled Valentine’s Day,
Mara

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