~Why Occupy Love?~
Photo: Painting at Burning Man 2011
Occupy Love. There are so many ways to look at these words, a command, an invitation, a declaration, a new-age proclamation, a powerless platitude, a volition or a guiding mission statement….on and on…
In one obvious interpretation, and one I’ve heard mentioned more than once, it’s dualistic. If one occupies love then one must have a relationship to love identifying it as separate from them. By definition, one can’t occupy something unless it is another. Unless it’s a distinct and individual object. In an occupation of love one must objectify love in order to possess it.
But this global arising is broad, and a deeper meaning calls…
A gentle invitation is heard in the words Occupy Love. It is an invitation to come home to something that already exists within and without. Something that becomes available and knowable through skillful means; through deep looking and quiet contemplation we touch the universal love which is in and of all things. Indeed the very essence of all that can be known and unknown in the phenomenological and noumenal universe. In stopping, calming, accepting, in “being” more that “doing”, the heart begins to open. One touches the ultimate. One may find the love they set out to occupy was already right where they were. Always and eternally present occupying them. There was never two, just one.
Occupy love implies a journey. Not so much a traditional love story of seeking and finding, but a different kind of journey. One of coming into balance. Awakening to the truth that all one needs is available in the present. This awakening is happening all over the world, separately to individual people, and yet together. Individually and collectively.
Occupy Love is not a story of conquest and victory, but a story of attaining wisdom–of our collective humanity transforming from childhood to wise elder. When I touch this great love I see there is nowhere to go. There’s nothing to win. To live in equanimity one does not go out and achieve or win it. One breathes in awareness.
I used to think that enlightenment was something that happened to someone. The ancient mythology of the troubled man going up the mountain and coming back down with deep wisdom, grey hair, big grey eyebrows and wild eyes. A bright beam of light had parted the heavens, shone upon him and now he was God-like and lived in truth, kindness and wisdom. Something external became internal, and now he was enlightened. But now I see this word enlightenment not speaking so much to rays of light, but weight. Not darkness to light, but heaviness to light.
For example, I carry the weight of misunderstanding, ignorance, resentment, fear, anger, injustice and so on. These psychological states are a burden and I suffer under the tremendous weight of them. But when I become enlightened, there is a letting go. I put down these things. They still exist, there are still real energies that exist, I just come to understand they are not me and I no longer own them or occupy them. When this happens there is great space. It takes tremendous courage to live with this space. It’s scary.
However, in being okay with the apprehension, excitement and anxiety that initially come with this space, the heart of love becomes known – there within all along. One finds that love was always occupying them.
In occupying and being occupied by love, or becoming awakened to loving power, one can see all the material and spiritual world are infused with loving kindness, goodness and joy. One can deeply know the universality and harmony of all that is.
With this understanding one feels safe, confident, solid, fresh and reflects all that is wonderful and good in our nature.
Love is an occupation.
- Gregg Hill, Co-Producer, Occupy Love
