The Tao Arms With Love Those It Would Protect

Tao arms with love those it would protect.
- The Book of Tao, F.J. MacHovec

In the Tao, love is a vast energy field.
Like water love yields, nourishes, 
And ultimately prevails over rock.

Love protects
Nourishes
Prevails.

. . .

In my meditations lately, love keeps coming up — the life-nourishing energy of deep caring, the work of love, the quiet expansion of self-love that spreads into the lives of others and into the greater world.

So when, earlier today, I came across the MacHovec quote in my files, it seemed that the time was right to explore that message.

And I’ve been thinking for a while about offering posters as a less expensive alternative to prints and originals, the time seemed right to do that as well.

The MacHovec translation captures something essential about Taoist love—not sentiment, but an active force that protects through yielding, nourishes through presence, and prevails through patience. Like water wearing stone, love in the Tao Te Ching is the softest power, the quietest strength. This is the love the Tao Te Ching returns to again and again — not grasping, not striving, but present the way water is present to stone.