"Love is a wonderful thing." That is what the song tells us and it's true. Love is the universe's most powerful gift to us. It drives people to extremes, both good and bad. It sends people to the highest highs and the lowest lows. We have all experienced the pure joy of being in love and have felt the utter desperation of love lost. The thing that these two extremes have in common is that they are external. Our boyfriends, girlfriends, spouses, significant others, are manifestations of our own love journeys. We are attracted to them for a reason and we have attracted them to us for a reason.
     Where we are internally, what we are feeling, experiencing, is what we will manifest. It is because of this that we must develop love, true love, first. Love begins at home and must begin with us.
     A star generates enormous energy and lovingly radiates it out into its solar system, galaxy and universe. The star does not seek to receive energy from the planets in its system, or from other stars in nearby galaxies. It knows that it must generate its own energy and then illuminate the world around it. Romantics around the world and across time have looked to the stars for inspiration. The stars teach us by example that our power comes from within.
     If we want to love, we must love ourselves, before we can love one another. If there is no love for self it ends there. A collapsed star, a black hole, sucks energy from those around it. It no longer generates or radiates energy. A healthy star feeds and nourishes, not by intention, but by effect.
     We can not choose or decide who to love. We can not make others love us. We can not generate love energy in others. While a moon shines brightly, it is a pale reflection of a sun's energy and does not generate its own light. We are not moon's, we are stars. Do not seek to feed off another's love. Do not seek to reflect the love of another. Only when you generate and radiate your own love, your love of self, will you be able to illuminate the world around you.
     The sun's light takes seven minutes to reach the Earth, and light years to reach our nearest solar system. As our love grows we will begin to see its effect growing and expanding. We will affect our family, our loved ones, our friends, our community and eventually the world.  We affect those near us first but eventually, inevitably, if we keep shining we will reach people and situations we can only dream of. It all starts at our core. If we love ourselves we will change the world. Let's be stars.