Perception: knowing less and loving anyway

Perception is key to experiencing the joys of life

To counter the slightly heavy, tortured lovers perception of last week’s Grounded Relating Monday Music Challenge, this week, the selection is all about a happy love perception: self-love, spousal love, tribal and community love. There’s also a jazzy, soul, reggae beat to today’s Monday Music Challenge selection, a perfectly “happy” sound to accompany the song’s lyrical notions of love and acceptance, a sound Grounded Relating hopes you will use to remember to love and accept yourself this week (and every week).

From way back, another old love song entitled “Love is a Many Splendored Thing” comes to mind. There is the unconditional love of a dog, which is ever available, but Yes-AND! includes some work and upkeep due to ownership of a dog. There is another form of love in the eyes of a child, a baby or a toddler, which also includes work, and is perhaps more rewarding than the work required to have a dog’s unconditional love. There is also the love of friends and family, which will encompass duty as well as love and work. And then there is that spousal love, which may be a hair more dissonant than any of the other love forms, due to the independent, individuated (or not!) nature of two co-mingling adults.

So love perception..it’s complicated, and it can be easy too. Just “Say Hey (I Love You).”

The lyrics of Michael Franti & Spearhead’s “Say Hey (I Love You)” are pretty self-explanatory, and the perception offered by the video is equally transparent, which is great. Some of us have trouble experiencing joy (If the perception shoe fits, wear it!), so the simplicity of this song won’t muddle up the issue. There is joy in life now, today, and there are many ways to experience that joy.

Perception can be aided by an unprejudiced, childlike openness

The video shows dancing in the street, the beauty of love, the hope of children playing, the truth of aging love, among many other images. In the “busy-ness” that is, we may forget to count our blessings; to witness them, the many, many blessing as they continue to arise, one after the other. Perception is key, and choice of perception is a fundamental right in the arena of human thought forms.

Enjoy “Say Hey (I Love You)” as posted on YouTube:

Knowing less and loving anyway

It’s a choice to experience the joys of living, and each human can make that choice. The song lyrics say: “The more I see, the less I know; but I know one thing, that I love you”. Do you know that one thing? Who do you love in your life? It could be your pet, your spouse, your child, your garden…it could be anything really. And certainly, always, even when there is no one or nothing else, you can love yourself.

Perhaps that is the only thing you need to know? Try it this week; go through the week, believing and humming to yourself, “Say Hey (I Love You)” and see what happens. Join us next Monday for our weekly Grounded Relating Monday Music Challenge.

Full lyrics for “Say Hey (I Love You)” by Michael Franti and Spearhead Lyrics, featuring Cherine Anderson, as posted on azlyrics.com, are below: