In this issue:

• new look website
  
• read a new article on the importance of presence and being yourself
• listen to a recent interview on Lotus FM
  
• mention of one on one counselling sessions
  
• a poem called 'What is Love?' by Giulia Criscuolo
  

New Article

Published in The Star Workplace on 6 October 2008 and given the title

Being yourself is the key to feeling fulfilled

One on one sessions

You are welcome to come and see me for individual counselling. Reply to this email to set up a slot.

Giulia Criscuolo

We sit around the fire.
It's a hot night
and you tell me that you do not believe in love,
that you question whether it even exists.
What most people call love, you say, is really, just convenience.

Then and there, I try to respond and tell you what I think love is,
but every offer I make, you challenge,
until I have nothing more to offer.
My core is shaken and I feel unsettled and uneasy.
Do I even know what love is?? 

Yet I know that love exists,
not just the romantic kind,
but that love that is the very essence of who we are,
the love that brought everything into existence. 

The next morning, during my quiet time,
I ask myself the question: What is Love?
Love is acts of kindness,
it is respect, trust, understanding presence.
Love is acceptance, appreciation, affection, availability, accountability,
listening, being seen and heard,
a warm feeling in my being where I feel expansive and connected.

Love is patience, tolerance, honesty, letting go,
not wanting to possess, control or hold onto.
Love is empathy, caring, encouragement, support,
being who I am fully,
seeing another for who they really are, free from illusions and projections.
Love is mysterious, unfathomable, limitless
and cannot be contained, labeled or confined. 

In quiet moments of silence,
when I rest in that space of no-thing and every-thing,
then I come to a place inside myself, so vast and limitless,
like a quiet, endless ocean, so deep and expansive.
It is not an emotion, but a state of being, a presence, an essence.

I could say that this is love,
but even just saying it, is limiting.
It is who I am, the eternal me that never dies
and that reaches into forever.

g@spiralconnect.za.net