What’s Love Got To Do With It?

LOVE

Is

The only thing

That authentically

Settles the

❤️

And

Mind.

It is the only experience

That can stop Time

(Or bring us back to it).

This post is dedicated to the one and only,  Tina Turner, whose life is an inspiration for everyone.  While I have always loved her work and what she stood for and believed in, hearing her talk about her life on Oprah’s show recently, I wondered how anyone could not help but to (not)feel her struggle, her pain, her triumphs—her sheer and utter exhaustion and most importantly:  her joy (for life).

She rallied every day. She performed for decades.  The pulse of life ran through her as if a force breathed into her from some distant heaven that she held The Key to!  This is evident to anyone who hears her sing, speak or watch her perform!

I believe she was hardwired to survive.  (Just.like.me.) (Just.like.you) She had that key to life and heaven. It was in her DNA—(just.like.me) (Just.like.you) to live against all odds and in spite of the abuse she endured.  What is it in some of us that makes us survive and what separates us from the others who don’t “make it out alive”?

A lot of negative talk is circulating around the globe about abusive, disrespectful and uncaring men.  (For a long time now.)  Unfortunately I have know many men who are this way. They wear clever and sometimes alluring masks at work and then a different more seductive  mask at home.  They carefully choose which kind or cruel facade they well expose to the women in their life...

I have heard, “she deserved it.”  I have heard, “teach her a lesson.” I have heard, “what is abuse anyway?” Who are these men?  They are our fathers, our brothers, our husbands, our lovers, our neighbors, our sons, our employers, our ministers, our presidents—even the very ‘gods’ we blindly worship. (And sometimes these very men are ruled by the very women who are even worse than they are...)

I know a number of men whom have had the same abusive treatment from women!  But the man who is abused does not yet have a large enough platform to have his voice heard, perhaps because the abuse spectrum has been like a worldwide pendulum tilted on the side of hurting women for too long.

“Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken” She sings (We all do!) I think Ms. Tina is the embodiment of that heart cracked open over and over and over again—pouring fourth all that magnificent love from which she holds this powerful and heavenly key to—for all of us to benefit from!

So I applaud all the men and women out there and around the world who have endured unthinkable crimes to their heart, mind and body—may we all learn from your trauma that it is not OK to hurt another.  It is not OK to look the other way.  It is not OK to “justify” mistreating anyone.  (It is not OK to not care.)