love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail

it is most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea

love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive

it is most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky

— e.e. cummings, “Love is more thicker than forget”

The mystery of the course of the year arises again today with this curious, endearing (perhaps, depending on the person), certainly enduring, Feast Day of St. Valentine. I’ll readily admit that I’ve not given much thought to this day — one of the superficial “greeting card” holidays, I long averred — and what little thought I did give to it, after the age of perhaps 10, was mostly critical, if not a little bit mocking. Like other judgements of youth, though, perhaps Valentine’s Day is worth reconsidering. (If ever there was a year to do so, then this surely must be the one.) Could it be that beneath the pink and red veneer, behind the boon in sales to the chocolatiers (who could fault that?), there is something much deeper at work here? Something wise, reminding us of a simple truth of our humanity (our hearts), that seems to make sense particularly now, at this moment of the year, on our path around the sun?

Here in my little corner of the northeast, we are in the midst of what feels like a “real winter” of old — it hasn’t been above freezing in weeks and thus the earth has kept on its lovely local blanket of snow. On the cross-quarter day of February 2, Groundhog’s Day or Candlemas, we made it half way to the Spring Equinox, so the daylight is longer, it really feels longer, and the sun is higher. It’s cold and when the sun is out it is BRIGHT. We’ve come through something dark (the winter) and still it is winter, but the growing light lightens not only our days, but also our hearts, gives hope, illuminates the work ahead, reminds us that nothing is possible, there is no light, there will be no warmth, the work we must do will never get done, without love.

“Only when I follow my love for my objective is it I myself who act. I act, at this level of morality, not because I acknowledge a lord over me, or an external authority, or a so-called inner voice; I acknowledge no external principle for my action, because I have found in myself the ground for my action, namely, my love of the action. I do not work out mentally whether my action is good or bad; I carry it out because I love it. My action will be ‘good’ if my intuition, steeped in love, finds its right place within the intuitively experienceable world continuum; it will be ‘bad’ if this is not the case. Again, I do not ask myself, ‘How would another man act in my position?’— but I act as I, this particular individuality, find I have occasion to do. No general usage, no common custom, no maxim applying to all men, no moral standard is my immediate guide, but my love for the deed. I feel no compulsion, neither the compulsion of nature which guides me by my instincts, nor the compulsion of the moral commandments, but I want simply to carry out what lies within me.”

— Rudolf Steiner, The Philosophy of Freedom (Chapter 9, “The Idea of Freedom.”)