Today is Valentines day, normally celebrated with a special meal and even chocolates. It is also Ash Wednesday in the Christian tradition, a day of fasting, the start of Lent – a season of simplification. They seem quite opposed as celebrations.

However, both are reminders that our lives are short,  and that we should live them with passion and to the fullest, appreciating, and celebrating fully, beauty as it appears in each day  .

In the school of mind

you learn a lot,

And become a true scholar for many to look up to.

In the school of love

you become a child

to learn again

Abu-Said Abil-Kheir, Sufi Poet, 967 – 1049