hello love from scratch

it's hard enough practicing hello love let alone organizing ourselves to formulate the how with the what and when and where of spreading love and heart-felt greetings across this expanse of a city called los angeles. i remember it was about 6 or 7 months ago that we set out certain goals and laid out specific plans to spread a little love. we discussed back and forth about everything from what type of font we should use for the hello love lettering on the t-shirts to what type of presence we wanted to have on the web. we wanted to go to farmer's markets and swap meets, organize events and raise funds for important causes. we even stated on our web site as one of our goals to raise enough funds to rent billboard space for a few days and considered whether we wanted it to say simply, hello love or hello love (yes, you).

sure we haven't achieved everything we set out to do, and we might even be rethinking some of our goals and our means of achieving them. but certain things have remained constant - our individual relationship to the hello love practice keeps evolving and as a result our group keeps transforming.

what do i mean by this? originally i thought hello love was something i was giving to someone. "hey there, hello love. pass it on." and it is partly that. but i began to see how hello love is just as much about giving to myself - exercising the confidence to give freely without any expectation to connect in a certain way with the recipient.

but recently i've found that hello love is also about shifting our energy when we are not about love or when i'm feeling frustrated or angry or uncomfortable about something or someone or a situation. and that shift may not go from anger to compassion. but it releases me from that space that is void of love. and in that hello love moment, in that slight release from anger or any constraining emotion, one might find healing words or insight to turn around a difficult circumstance into opportunity.

our group thought of hello love as a social experiment, but i didn't anticipate that the experiment was really about us, 5 women wanting to bring more love into this world through artful and crafty means, working together within the confines and limitless energy of our uniqueness as well as common interests. i don't think so much about the how, the what, or the when and where (ok, so it creeps in every now and then in a hello love meeting during a decision making process). but i think maybe i'll be focusing more on the why, or maybe even a why not.