To open the gates...or not?

Long ago, or so it seems to me, I met my first wife. Little did I know how much damage she was to do to me on the inside. I grew up wealthy. Being financially well off allowed me time to begin to study spirituality at an early age. People would have described me as kind, warm, friendly, laid back. Given some thought I think they would have said wise. I was the guy every one came to for help with thier issues, crisis, and hangups. I never got invited to parties, I wasn't popular, but quietly I was everyones friend. I was ok with that. It's how I wanted to be. I was loving, without being sexual, discerning without being judgmental. I was objective with out being cold and distant. Once I met my now ex-wife, that all changed. I thought I could fix my ex. I thought I could help her heal and she would become some kind and loving woman. I was wrong. Instead I became like a fortress. First I closed the gates of my heart. Still I felt attacked, so I placed guards on the ramparts, then came barbedwire, and minefields. I was no longer trusting. I was no longer loving, warm, friendly. I could fake it, but people felt the distance, the plasticiness. When I did open up to a few, all I had was misery to share, and people will only take that for so long before they leave. It's not thier fault, it's natural. I thought I could change my Ex. Instead I am the one who changed. We can not change others, no matter what we think or do or how we try. It's a fact. I can present reasons for a person to change. I can give them arguments for change, I can give them behaviors, but in the end it comes down to them. Only thing that can change a person is the person themselves. It must come from within. In my story, I changed myself. I had to, to survive the emotionaly abusive and crazy life I was now married to. With the help of a little raven, who was able to over fly the mine field, barbed wire, past the guards at the ramparts and into my heart, I finaly realized how lonely, misserable, deseperate and ugly I had become. I then dissolved the marrige. I moved away, and came to live in a new place. I have met new people. The assult on my emotions is over. It has been two years since I moved, and I am finaly removing the last of my protections that took me years to build. With the use of Magic I have dug up the mines and recycled the barbed wire. I have retired the soldiers. It's not an easy process, and at times is scary. Now I am left looking at the gates from the inside. JMG says in his book that once the telluric and Solar currents are invoked, changes take place rapidly. I am begining to see, or feel rather, what that means in me. I feel my old self returning, the one I was in High school, the one who was warm, friendly, and kind. The me who used to relish in hugs instead of the me who feared them. I feel as if this winter solstice isn't just above me, but in me. As the sun is "reborn" and it's warmth begins to return to the earth, so too in me is love. Not the love of woman, or of a child or other family member, but the "Love" with a Capital L. The love of the world and all people, yes even of the broken people like my Ex. Perhaps because today is my birthday, I have been thinking the last few days if I were to die suddenly, how would people describe me to others? Brave, loving, kind, generous, sweet? Or would it be bitter, stupid, failur, coward, poor father? Maybe some where in the middle? I know how I want to be remembered, and I can see what I have to do to make that happen. Yesterday I meditated on my ability to Love. Can I love again, the world, as I once did? Is it possible to Love and still be protected? Do I have to be vulnearable to the world to love the world? Would that make me naieve? As each question came I tried to find an answer. Some I discovered I'll simply have to do and see. The reality is that I feel Love growing in me, and I don't think I can keep it shut away like I once did, it's simply growing to strong, and in that strength of love, I am finding there is protection, that I don't need be afraid. Perhaps I will be more vulnerable in some ways, but is that such a bad price to pay to be free? Is that to much to pay to be kind, warm, and loving again? When I die, I want people to remember me as these. I want to go fourth from this life with Love in my heart and acceptance of death in what ever form fate and destiny bring it to me. Great love, I am beggining to feel, is in itself a form of protection. So here I find myself standing between a great and returning sense of love and the barred gates of my heart. Fearful and excited all at the same time. Do I open them and let the loving warm glow out to the world? Do I keep them closed still, to protect this returning love? Do I keep them closed forever and charge people for emission? Can I keep the doors barred as I feel this Love growing to overpowering? Will I explode if I try? Will it all go away if I open the doors? Will it die off if I don't? I want to open the doors, and yet, I know fear is holding me back still. Open or not to open, either way I know that what I choose will have huge reprocussions down the road. In a sentence what am saying is: I want to Love, do I have the courage to do so?

Gwynt-Siarad.