Love: A Meditation for the 4th Week of Advent by Denise Hackert Stoner ARCWP

 https://open.substack.com/pub/denisehackertstoner/p/love?r=2kfqor&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

A pair of small birds, male and female, busily hunt for tiny insects hiding in the bark of a tree. The male approaches the female, food in beak, and offers it to her. She eats. 

White-breasted Nuthatch Pair

What drives one small bird to ensure the well-being of the other? Where does that instinct come from? Somehow, in some part of his tiny being, does he know that the eggs developing in her body will carry something of his very self into the future? Does he know that for their species to survive, she must survive and thrive? 

For one to survive, so must the other. These two little beings are a mutual configuration, a pair. They are partners in a project called Life. Is this love?

A vast network of the gossamer threads called mycelium spreads through the soil of the forest. These root-like structures are the underground parts of fungi that occasionally send up fruits which we see above-ground as mushrooms. Many mycelia interweave with the tiny rootlets of trees. There, underground, these fungi feed the tree nutrients which they have collected from the soil. They also pass water to the tree. And in return, the tree feeds the fungi carbohydrates, which it has made through photosynthesis, and which the fungi lack the capacity to produce on their own. 

One large being helping another. On some unknown level do they know that for each to live a healthier life so must the other? Is this love?….