February 18, 2025, at 7:30 PM ET

“Sharing Love in Difficult Times”

With Diann L. Neu and the WATER staff

Watch the recording of the WATERritual here.

Preparation: Have a symbol of a heart, photos of your loved ones, a candle, a globe or map

Welcome

While January has been filled with anxiety, uncertainty, even fear, and perhaps hope, we want to open our hearts to love and compassion in February. Today, we gather to focus on loving ourselves, loving others, loving the world. This Valentine’s season, let us share the cosmos of loving kindness and loving gratitude.

Song: “What the World Needs Now is Love” sung by Dionne Warwick (1966) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfHAs9cdTqg&ab_channel=R472FunkChannelTV

What the world needs now is love, sweet love
It’s the only thing that there’s just too little of
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
No not just for some but for everyone

Let Us Love Ourselves

“If I didn’t define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people’s fantasies for me and eaten alive.” ~Audre Lorde, Cancer Journals

“Love opens the doors into everything, as far as I can see, including and perhaps most of all, the door into one’s own secret, and often terrible and frightening, real self.” ~May Sarton, Mrs. Steven Hears the Mermaids Singing

“It is not a matter of thinking a great deal but of loving a great deal, so do whatever arouses you most to love. ~St. Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle

Sharing: Hold up your heart symbol so we can see these images of love.

Song: “How Could Anyone Ever Tell You” by Libby Roderick
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zNxnV_5Onhc

How could anyone ever tell you You are anything less than beautiful?
How could anyone ever tell you You are less than whole?
How could anyone fail to notice that your loving is a miracle?
How deeply you’re connected to my soul.

Let Us Love One Another

“The first responsibility of love is to listen.” ~bell hooks, “Everything I know about Love”

“To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company. We talk, I believe, all day long: to talk to each other is but more animated and an audible thinking.” ~Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“Love doesn’t just sit there, like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; re-made all the time, made new.” ~Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

Sharing: Hold up your pictures of loved ones.

Let Us Love the World

“I venture to say that for women friends love is an orientation toward the world as if my friend and I were more united than separated, more at one among the many than separate and alone.” ~Mary E. Hunt, Fierce Tenderness

“What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.” ~Helen Keller, We Bereaved

“The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature and God.” ~Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

Sharing: Hold up a globe or map

Reflection/Sharing

What have you heard and felt about loving? What love do you hope for in the future? How can you share love on a daily basis and make a difference in the world?

 Taking Action

  • Take care of yourself: find routines to practice self-love intentionally.
  • Be the light you are searching for in the world, and share positive news with your friends.
  • Be kind, not only to others, but to yourself.
  • Tell people you appreciate them today.
  • Call a loved one and catch up.
  • Write a love letter to yourself.

Song: “Give Love” by Sweet Honey in the Rock

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEaL4jbVeVw&ab_channel=SWEETHONEYINTHEROCK

Let Us Radiate Love 

May love be within you as you love yourself.
May love be beside you as you share love with others.
May love be around you as you love the world.
May love nourish you as you bring love and justice to all in a weary world.
May love and gratitude guide your decisions.
Happy Valentine’s season! Happy Black History Month!

© 2025 Diann L. Neu, co-director of WATER, dneu@hers.com, www.waterwomensalliance.org