Image from the Tarot of Love, courtesy of angelpaths.com

There is no mistaking the power of love, but as this Valentine’s Day falls very close to the exact opposition of Saturn to Neptune, a transit where the lovely fantasies of Neptune are destroyed by Saturn’s reality check, it seems more appropriate to write about the source of true love – the love that is generated within our own spirit and psyche.

Gary Zukav writes,

The experiences of romantic love are real. You feel exhilaration, excitement, attraction, fulfilled, loveable and complete. It is the perceived source of these experiences that is illusory. You are the source, not another individual. When you attribute to another individual the ability to make you feel these things, you become powerless. As you begin to cultivate the parts of yourself that are the true source of these experiences, you become powerful. When you become powerful, you are able to interact with others without dependency and without expectations. You are able to act from an empowered heart and not be attached to the outcome. The first experience—in which you feel that your ability to experience your own worthiness, lovability, and value—is an illusion. The second experience—in which you are able to experience your value, worth, and lovability with or without another individual—is real.

Because we feel incomplete, we often reach out to others in an attempt to feel whole. The overpowering sense of connection we sometimes feel in a new relationship can be extremely intoxicating and feel fated, causing us to feel that this person must be our soulmate. I believe that there are people that we are irrevocably drawn to, and those people become our teachers and the vehicles for our soul’s growth. But that doesn’t necessarily make them a soulmate relationship or mean that we are destined to be with that person for life. Sometimes a relationship like this is for a limited purpose, and once that purpose has expired the relationship ends of its own accord.

Marriage to a soulmate partner is a wonderful thing, but it is not an end in itself. It is the beginning of a new journey of self-discovery that sometimes requires confronting painful places within us and healing old wounds. The soulmate partnership urges us to individuate rather than lose ourself in a bond with another. We learn to love ourselves in loving our partner. Soulmates aren’t always marriage partners; often they are lifelong friends or parents and children. Ultimately though, the truest love is the pure experience of love itself, an experience that springs forth from our own heart in every circumstance of our life.