Marcia's Musings: I'm Falling in Love
/By Marcia Appel — Last Updated: August 5, 2025
There are so many ways to fall. Falling down. Falling into despair. Falling into money. Falling down the proverbial rabbit hole. Falling into a pile of leaves. I, on the other hand, am falling in love.
It’s so easy to do sometimes, isn’t it? A person, an idea, or a dream captures your attention, and whoosh! Down you go. What I am falling in love with (again) is life. Life with its raucous joys, unforgettable dramas, moments of sadness, loneliness, or fear, successes and failures – all of it forming an unimaginable kaleidoscope of experiences and memories.
I never really fall out of love with life. It’s just that sometimes my attention wanders from this moment, and the next, and the next, each one precious and irreplaceable. When that happens, too often I lose my balance, energetically or physically, and miss the bigger picture.
What is the bigger picture, you ask? It is the long arc of a single life merging with the infinite arc of history itself. When you embrace that perspective, it is easier to see that there is continuous movement toward higher levels of consciousness. With that perspective as a foundation, along with a commitment to practice mindfulness each moment with calm awareness, the rich patterns of a single life and all the lives of sentient creatures can emerge.
And if history’s infinite arc always bends toward higher consciousness, then, I think to myself, I surely can face the bad times, too, with clear seeing and calm abiding and know what to do and when to do it.
What makes falling in love with life so exhilarating is when we commit to being vulnerable, to open to our heart’s deepest desires knowing full well that there will be possibilities and risks if we follow it. This requires an awareness of balancing each of those, establishing firm boundaries, and being open to transformation.
You might ask what spurred me to fall – or re-fall – in love with life right now? To be honest, in our current culture, I feel the lurking threat of outright attack on kindness, empathy, and compassion. When this happens, I focus on what I can do locally to help others and myself as best as I can in keeping with my revolutionary spirit of my True Self.
Speaking of which, I am re-falling in love with my True Self, my Authentic Self. For this reason, I invite you to take at least the first third of our teacher-training program beginning September 19, 2025. This first module deep dives into the three essential questions of life: Who am I? Why am I here? How am I to live? In the embrace of community, we support each other to answer these and other profound questions. It’s lifechanging.
I am falling in love, too, with the season of fall itself. Even as I appreciate the lingering sultry summer days, I feel the shift toward cooler temperatures, the anticipation of blazing leaves of oranges, reds and golds, and the movement and motion of animals, insects, fowl, and fish as they naturally settle down for the winter. I feel the desire for root vegetables, blankets tucked over my lap as I sit on the front porch, my hands quietly holding a book. I observe the hummingbirds stopping for nectar before continuing their southern route, and I see flocks of geese stretching and strengthening their wings for their sojourn.
I long for yoga classes to stretch and strengthen my body as I move and breathe in community with others as fall approaches. I want to stretch my mind, too, by participating in workshops, the Psychic Fair, private consultations, and retreats (Madeira, anyone?). I find Yoga Nidra to be a journey to the Self through the Self and understanding that the Divine already is within us.
Don’t misinterpret what I am saying. I am fierce in my beliefs, strong in my actions, fully alive, awake, and aware. I speak up for what I feel is in the best interests of others and myself, I harbor an instinct to honor the rules of law, I believe in science. Like any other human, I worry, fret, and ponder what will be best for my children and grandchildren. This sometimes feels like an immense burden.
And, yet…. I believe in love, I believe in falling in love with life, every day and moment by moment. What spurs me onward is spending time in nature, studying the philosophies that have kindness and compassion, empathy, and sympathetic joy as their cornerstones. When I love life, life loves me. More days than not, more moments than not, I feel connected to my inner life and to all of you.
Modern science provides fascinating insights into what happens when we fall in love, whether it’s with life, with one individual, or with a pet. Neurotransmitters flood the brain, creating a cocktail of pleasure, energy, and focus. Oxytocin and vasopressin – the so-called “bonding hormones” – help people form attachments to each other and to the natural world. The heart does, in fact, beat faster when feeling love, and brain scans show patterns like those seen when people experience powerful cravings.
Even as science explains the mechanisms, it cannot fully capture the feeling. No amount of data can quantify the trembling joy of holding someone’s hand for support, of cradling an infant for the first time, of watching an eagle soar, or of pursuing artistic expression with abandon.
What can I say? I am in love.
Postscript: When it comes to book recommendations (check out mine from last month), the yogis and guests who frequent the Lakeville center have shared book recommendations all summer on our giant chalkboard in our community space. I’ve included it here for your perusal and consideration. Happy reading!
