Celebrate 7 Types Of Love This Valentine’s Day (and every day)

When I was a kid, we celebrated valentine’s day as a family. A house full of girls sharing love for one another with handmade cards, pink and red craft projects, and organic chocolates. As an adult, in the years I was single on Valentine’s Day, I would treat myself to some sort of spa-esque experience, gather my pals around and fill any perceived loneliness with the joyous company of friends. In the years I had a boyfriend, we would buy each other expensive gifts, then get dressed up and go out for dinner just like the rest of those in ‘love’ did.

My first year married, my husband showed no interest in Valentine’s Day exploits, “celebrating love is an everyday affair”, was the gist of how he felt about it. Despite me agreeing with his logic, a childlike disappointment must have come through, so the next year he dragged a bathtub up that he found on the street, bought miles of tubing, and filled it up on our balcony so we could bathe under the stars while we ate fondue gluttonously. It was the single most romantic thing that I’d ever experienced, and in that moment I realized, we as a society had gotten the celebration of love all wrong.

If we’re going to celebrate Valentine’s day at all, we ought to give love to each kind of love, learning how to harness each one individually and for our loved ones, allowing each form to guide us into a greater state of wisdom and awareness. If we’re going to buy gifts, then they ought to be made lovingly, useful things that will create positive experiences for those we love, beyond this particular day. So, I stayed up last night gathering some ideas (and quotes) of simple, inexpensive gifts or donations that fit each type of ancient love.

Representative of sexual passion and desire, this type of erotic love is named after the Greek god of love and fertility. For the spiritually mature, the destructive energy this love carries can be harnessed and transformed into one which brings connection and closeness through Tantra and other forms of spiritual sex. For those less developed, it can be abusive to self and other, a simple animalistic response void of consciousness, led instead by impulse and self-indulgence. It’s the type of love that burns out quickly unless other forms of love exist along with it to fan the fire eros burns to keep it to a smouldering simmer.

Philia is the love found in friendships, it’s that sense of deep comradery, considered to be a love between equals, built through feelings of deep respect and loyalty, feelings created through shared experiences and emotions.

Self-love, which is very much related to self-care, has become an industry in of itself in recent years … which is both a plus and a minus for the human race. A plus, as many people have come to understand that in order to care for others, one must first learn to care for oneself. A minus because many of those people profiting from the industry have allowed a sort of narcissistic self-care / self-love focused on personal fame and self-obsession creep into their realms. Giving yourself little 15-minute intervals throughout the day or week to meditate, exercise, stretch, read, treat yourself to tiny spa treatments, or ensure you get a good night’s sleep, are simple ways to recharge your self-love batteries.

Agape, is to love unconditionally, benevolent boundless compassion strengthened by infinite empathy. It’s the universal loving kindness we associate with Saints and our Gods / Goddesses. It’s the purest form of spiritual love, a love bigger than ourselves, free of desire or expectation.

Photo by freddie marriage on Unsplash