Happy February!  

In honor of Valentine’s Day on February 14^th, I thought it would be fun to channel Saint Valentine of Rome to see what he thinks us 21^st Century folks should know about love and relationships. While the Catholic liturgical calendar only has him listed as a local saint (according to Wikipedia), we all know better! Here’s what he has to say for Valentine’s Day 2016:

Channeled Message from Saint Valentine

What can you do with your hands this February to show love? My hands shared the power of Christ’s love and were able to heal persons with epilepsy. That was my miracle. But that doesn’t mean that you don’t have miracles in you, too.

You lead much busier lives than we did when I lived on earth and was trying to help those around me. I didn’t intend to become a saint—it just happened after the fact, like it did to so many others.   While the mysteries, the how-to of metaphysical healing combines love and skill, there are so many ways you can harness the positive power of love not just in the time you are in, but throughout the year and over time.

Love isn’t something to just throw a lot of attention to on one day of the year, like the whole promotion of my day on the calendar as a day of love. It builds up false expectations and doesn’t allow you to delve deep into your relationships. If you expect to throw a lot of attention and care to your partner on Valentine’s Day and then back off for six months, you’ll be left with a dead plant on the windowsill.

What I mean is that Love is to be nurtured and tended, like a plant. Some relationships are like weeds—you are immediately kindred spirits and you grow together, wild and crazy and shoot up in no time at all. You don’t have to give them plant food or even bother watering them—they thrive no matter the circumstance. You could pull up those weeds in the corner of your garden and come back in a month—and see them shooting up again, taking another stab at a garden takeover!

Other relationships are like tending a cactus.   It might be prickly on the outside, but there’s a lot more to the cactus than you once thought. Once you know its nature, there is life-sustaining water on the inside. It could save your life on a hot, dry desert day. That cactus can be around for the long haul and even eventually flower if you take the time to tend to it.

And some other relationships are like the oak tree and Spanish moss…or hawthorn and mistletoe—one cannot live without the other. This can be good or bad. Good if the two plants constantly replenish and sustain each other—or terrible if the Spanish moss/mistletoe takes over.

Sometimes, you can be drawn to what you think will be a beautiful plant, a beautiful relationship. But like anything worth having—like that rare orchid or collection of African violets on your desk, or even a country rose—they need tending. Sure, you can bring home some cut flowers from the grocery store, but they will be overpriced and dead in a week. But it’s best to learn about the nature of the plant. Do they thrive best in sun or shade? Do they need extra nitrogen or plant food? Are they happier indoors or outdoors? Do they need to ever be pruned? Then, by learning about the plant’s needs, we learn to care for it over the years. We get satisfaction in how it grows and blesses us.

However, you can’t go and buy a rosebush, bring it home, and expect it to become a sunflower, or a daisy, or an orchid. You get what you buy. And if you decide that you hate the smell of roses, or your skin is inflamed from getting pricked by its thorns, or you just don’t have enough sun in your yard to care for it, then it’s best to pass the plant along to someone who will love and tend and care for it. And these days, people are learning a lot about relationships. They may need to have more than one longstanding partnership to learn what they need to in this lifetime. So, you may look back over your life and see that you ended up with a garden full of plants, with all different types of relationships.

And just because you’re a sunflower, it doesn’t mean your children will be sunflowers, too. They might be Gerbera daisies, or bluebells.

But you might say, “Saint Valentine, there’s no way I could grow a plant, much less a garden. I don’t have a green thumb!” I’ve heard it time, and time, and time again—and I’ve seen it through the souls over the centuries that light candles at my feet. They are unhappy. They ask me for this person or that person. And then, if they get the person they want, they ask me to change them, like magically changing a cactus into a papaya. Or they’re annoyed that their whole life has been taken over, like bamboo.

But let me tell you this. All of you. All of you have the talent and the capacity for love. You are blessed with the opportunity to love while you’re here on Earth. But it’s your choice. And yes, some people have been “born with a green thumb,” while others have to put in more work to learn how to garden. But no matter what, you are all loveable. You are all capable. It’s about the choices you make on how you spend your time.   EVERYone can have a beautiful garden. So can you, if you choose to.

So instead of buying chalky candy in honor of my day, strew rose petals at your love’s bedside, so that they awake and follow a path of joy to you. May you have every joy and blessing on my saint’s day this and every February.