Happy (almost) Valentine’s Day!
In this episode, we’re encouraging you to reflect on your relationship with love, and specifically, romantic love.
To help us explore this, our guest host Maria Luz O’Rourke is sharing her Letter to Romantic Love. She writes of her personal journey with romantic love, bringing us through all the twists and turns and lessons—many of which I believe will resonate with you. She shows us what it looks like to grow and gradually develop a healthy relationship with love overall (despite earlier setbacks), and reminds us that it’s okay to find ourselves wanting and needing different types of love at different phases of our lives.
I hope you enjoy listening to Maria’s letter and consider writing your own this Valentine’s Day.
About Maria
Maria Luz O’Rourke is an astrologer, certified hypnotherapist, and psychic medium and holds a B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Washington and a M.A. in Organizational Leadership from Gonzaga University.
Maria switched gears in 2024, leaving a 29 year career in Pharmaceuticals to start a practice (marialuz.online) utilizing spiritual modalities to help and heal. She currently holds 1:1 sessions for astrology and spiritual guidance.
She writes the Substack newsletter, Astrology, Alchemy, & Honest Recovery. The focus is to share hope for living freely authentically, and to empower people with the wisdom of astrology and the Universe.
You can also connect with her on social media:
LinkedIn
Substack
Dear Eros (aka Cupid),
I must confess that lately I have been feeling just a little bit bad about how I ended things with you. I mean, I really haven’t thought about you at all in a few years. I think the term ‘ghosting’ applies for how I left things. Or, the lyrics from the Kacey Musgraves song “Irish Goodbye” may better describe how I felt about you at the time:
I gave you some space, ‘cause I wanted to see
If I mattered enough, would you come back to me?
Considering the length of time we had been together, maybe I—we—acted too rash. I am not saying I want you back in my life (but I guess I am not saying I don’t), just that I feel bad about how things ended so unceremoniously. I was immature about you, understandably, since I was all in from the time I was a child, watching all of those Disney movies in which you dominated the storyline. You and your bestie “happily ever after” making a grand appearance together at the end of every movie.
Oh, you made half-hearted attempts in teen flicks to show that there would be trials and misunderstandings, but you would always end up the hero. Cue the upbeat music at the end, and you hogging the attention before the closing credits. Even when the poor sap realized they turned their back on you, they would grovel and get you back.
Ever the achiever, I found you the summer after high school and I didn’t let go of you, even when you eventually took the form of abuse. I took my three kids and started over, but I still didn’t give up on you.
When I last encountered you outside of fiction, it was in the form of a later in life, post-divorce relationship. You were cute and fun at first, but it quickly became clear that I wasn’t going to cut it. I was much too needy. So you held me at bay in an on and off again relationship that lasted years.
Looking back, I realize that Alcohol was often a third wheel, ready to grease the emotional wheels for better or worse. And that zealot, Diet Culture, told me I had to look a certain way in order to get or keep your attention. It was confusing trying to juggle you plus these other companions which had also been with me from a young age. Eventually, I was plain worn out by all of you, in fact, I couldn’t really separate the three of you, so when I broke up with Alcohol and Diet Culture for good, you kind of had to go, too.
Over the years, my friends would ask me about you. “Are you seeing anyone?” They would ask, as if that would be the biggest news I could possibly share over our Thai food or Pho. In those early days without you, I felt defensive when confronted with such questions. Why did everyone assume my status without you was something to be temporarily endured? I may even have over-extolled the virtues of being unpartnered, of not having to think of you for once in my life, just to prove a point: That the narrative we had been fed about you was just plain wrong.
The longer I have been apart from you, the more content I have grown. See, I realized there were more worthy partners to get to know and—pun intended—love. Just as recognized by the ancient Greek philosophers were philia (friendship), philautia (self-love), and agape (unconditional love), to name a few. And I was not alone in finding happiness without you. Heck, even an icon like Barbie had an existential crisis in front of everyone and dared to want more than a dream house and Ken! Did you notice how many of us cheered her on as she opened up to the Universe, found self-love, friendship, and unconditional love? You weren’t even there at the closing credits where you always show up, and we didn’t even notice.
Aside from finding validation for leaving you behind in pop culture, I started finding it among academics and intellectuals. Scientists like Bella DePaulo and journalists like Meghan Keane were presenting data and writing books about people being perfectly happy—more healthy and happy, even—without you, challenging the belief system in which we first met. I was reassured that I am not deluding myself in finding my life fuller than it ever has been … without you. I find philia in weekly friend group zooms, open text threads, real life lunches, and walks with friends. I have community philia at the yoga studio, in my recovery groups, with my neighbors. I find agape and philautia walking my dog along the Puget Sound or among Douglas Firs and Red Cedars, while journaling, or connecting with Spirit in meditation.
So imagine my surprise as I assembled my 2025 vision board when you snuck onto it. Boldly, really, not sneakily at all. In the form of two hands clasped in a balanced V shape, a vast horizon in front of their silhouette. The words, clipped from a cast-off magazine in a pile at the library, “stronger” and “together” placed immediately above the pic of the hands. The vision board workshop facilitator read to us the subconscious meanings after we had placed all of our photos and words on our boards. I had placed you, Eros, on the middle righthand side of my board. Here is the meaning of that placement:
What action step does my soul want me to take and what will manifest if I am willing to take that action?
And what I journaled after this question:
Be open to love and experiencing it truly for the first time.
Somehow you found the back door of my subconscious and are now camped out on my 2025 vision board. Which means I am manifesting you, like it or not.
I can’t deny that my evolutionary astrology, with Master Teacher Saturn in Taurus sitting patiently in my 7th house of 1:1 relationships, has had this assignment on my soul’s syllabus this time around. I am not normally a procrastinator (too much fire in my natal chart), but I have dragged my feet on this. This is the year I am open to revisiting this lesson. I have matured. I would no longer drag my former companions Alcohol and Diet Culture along to meet you, thereby numbing me to getting real with you. I know my non-negotiables now. My life is pretty stable and great, so you would have to knock my socks off to get me to seriously entertain you as a suitor.
I am half Irish, but I humbly eat crow and retract my Irish goodbye. At least for this year, I will smile and say hello instead if we have a chance meeting. But I can’t make any promises that we’ll have a happy ending. This isn’t a Disney movie, after all.
Love,
Maria
Your Journal Prompts:
What are your earliest memories of eros/romantic love? What beliefs and values about it were instilled in you or did you take for granted?
Have you ever given up on romantic love, or has your view of romantic love changed over the course of your life?
Do you think romantic love will continue to dominate in media and culture over other types of love (friendship, self-love, nature/universal love)? Why or why not?
If you are so inspired, write your own letter to Eros this Valentine’s Day.
Thank you to Maria for guest hosting and sharing her Letter to Romantic Love!
After each episode of the podcast, I invite you to close out by tapping into the wisdom of your Soul, and asking the question:
Soul, what piece of wisdom from this session do you most need me to remember?
Which parts of Maria’s letter resonated most with you? Feel free to share with us in the comments.
And if this episode really spoke to you, give it a like, leave a comment, or send it along to anyone else who could benefit from it. Maria and I would greatly appreciate your support!
With much love and gratitude,
Marcy
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