Love is magic

Love is the most powerful magic of all. It heals, it transforms, it brings peace in the face of conflict, unity in the face of division, hope in the face of overwhelming adversity, life in the midst of death. Yet, unlike other magic, it cannot be summoned. No spell will call it forth. No ritual will make it present. It seeks willing recipients, those who open their hearts to it and allow it to enter. Once it has made entrance, it can grow and multiply. It can, but only if it is allowed the opportunity to do so. That opportunity comes only from offering it to others, giving it away with no thought of reward.

Hence, love comes at a cost, a high cost many are unwilling to bear. It requires the abandonment of conventional goals, of the desire to put oneself above all else, of the desire to control others. It cannot be given, only offered and the world is such that many, perhaps most, are unwilling to accept the offer, may even actively oppose it, sometimes passively, sometimes violently. Yet, if it is not continually offered, it shrivels, loses strength, and may even die leaving one with pain and bitterness, bearing the scars from the opposition yet bereft of the healing knowledge that it is still there and can grow again when offered anew.

Mere sympathy is not love, only its pale reflection. Sentiment is not love, only an imitation so delicate it may be blown away by the slightest breeze of change, the tiniest bit of opposition, the cloying revulsion of overuse. Desire for another is not in itself love though it might be a sign that love is present. Yet love does not depend on desire. It exists and grows when offered and accepted whether desire is present or not. The heat of passion may be an experience of love, but love is at its strongest not in fire but in the icy face of adversity when concern for the other overwhelms concern for self, when pain and suffering are willingly borne that the pain and suffering of the other might be eased.

Love confounds expectations, upends conventional wisdom, opposes boundaries, cannot be reduced to a mere commodity, cannot be bought or sold only given and accepted. Hence it defies all atempts at control, cannot itself be seen, touched, tasted, smelled, or heard. Thus it is magic and not a mere law of nature, the most powerful magic of all.