What do you love?
Heading down the drive for their morning exploration, Calliope slips a pebble into each muse slipper. “What do you love?”
Henrietta freezes, causing the trio to stop and scan.
“I love —” Urania ventures, “understanding. Like our awareness that Henny’s keen sense of smell exceeds our seeing, leading us to notice things we otherwise would miss. I love understanding how things fit together, or finding ways to fit them together.”
Cackling from the neighbor’s yard prompts Thalia’s response. “I love beauty. I love, watching love in action. I love witnessing six-year-old Waylon feeding his chickens. I also love — dessert. Can we have ice cream after our walk?”
“What do you love Cal?” Urania queries.
“I…” Cal pauses, “love courage. I love that we are willing to show up and be seen… imperfect muses in an imperfect world.”
Poets, mystics, children and sages have, for centuries, pointed towards our attention as being inseparable from our love.
They noticed how, in the presence of what we cherish, we gather ourselves in—how the fractured, weather-like self draws together and briefly becomes whole, before it’s offered out, towards our devotion.
Chloe Hope