My heart was sticky with a bellyfull of grief and loss so dark and heavy I found it hard to gather the energy to lift my feet and walk. But I started moving slowly through jungled streets to the edge of the island, stepping into the huge lake. The water around my ankles felt soft and warm like my mothers belly.

Carefully I stepped over rocks and pebbles until I was waist deep. I stopped there and listened. I felt tiny like her child. The ancient pool spoke to me, not with words I could hear, but I could feel every pulse of her primal intention as her ripples beat my chest, opening my heart so wide to the blazing sun it caught on fire. My heart rose out of my chest like a huge flower opening across the expanse of me with petals of flame spinning around. Love burned in the centre like lava spilling out all over me dripping sticky sweet everywhere.

I opened my hands in submission to her as she asked me what I was willing to give her. My belly panged for him, my lost lover and friend. I cried out and into her for a long time until my heart was finally silent. I held my hands in prayer for a long time. Complete stillness. My soul made it’s request.

Opening my heart and my hands out again to receive the sun I felt my whole body submit as I fell backwards into the water and in that moment I gave up every lover I have ever known to the water. Every attachment, every passionate memory, every longing, every belonging. I gave them all to her with all the love I have in me.

As I rose up through the water her silent promise washed through me. I felt clean, brand new. Shiny like the water around me. My damaged back which was in twisted agony just minutes before felt soft, my spine fluid like a dancer, my locked out hips gently floated back into place in perfect position.

The waves hit my chest with increasing speed and power filling my whole body with the energy of the entire lake. She gave me everything I could take from her. She asked me to visit her every day.

I made a promise to myself to come out to this magical place every day until my spirit is healed. Until my body is well. To give more and more to her that I have no more use for. I don’t know what she has done with my previous lovers but I know that her heart is love. They couldn’t be in a more beautiful place. In Lake Nicaragua, surrounding a jungled island, with a volcano of fire and one of water watching over them.

I may have loved and lost every time in my life, but I know what it is to love, to truly and deeply open myself, giving everything I have to it. Before I knew what it is to love, to give fearlessly what it requires of me, for most of my life, I was dead inside. Today I feel lucky to know this pain of knowing love.