What is ‘Matsu Love’?
My business name is derived from my last name: Matsukane. “Matsu” is the Japanese word for pine tree, and it means “waiting for God’s soul to descend from Heaven.” It is a symbol of longevity, rebirth, renewal and a hopeful future.
I love this symbolism, and I connect it to motherhood in a few ways:
1) Your body is a vessel. In a very real sense, your body is a vessel and channel for divine love when you are pregnant and bringing a soul into this reality from somewhere else. Outside of pregnancy, I also see every human being as a vessel for divine love and grace, and a mother is the ultimate example of this. If we choose to, we can welcome that loving presence into our bodies and express it in how we show up in daily life.
2) You bring in a hopeful future. The courageous act of bringing a child into this world is the ultimate hope for a brighter future, and can be an empowering reason to cultivate our own well-being so that we are in the best possible state to mold a future generation.
3) You are reborn over and over. I see the potential of the human journey, and particularly motherhood, as a an access to a continuous rebirthing process. Life and all of its changes will force you to create new identities - you have the choice to do so intentionally, or from a default, survival place. This is the opportunity of Matsu Love and why I started my business - to give you access to that choice so that you can create and recreate yourself with intention, creativity and joy.
I included the word “Love” in my brand name, because love is what drives me in my greatest endeavors and my day-to-day responses to life. I have personally experienced the gift of experiencing divine, unconditional love for others and all of humanity through various pursuits in spiritual, intellectual, and personal growth. I want to give that gift away to everyone.
My calling in life is: People experience divine grace and wake up to who they really are. My belief is that who people really are is pure, unconditional love, and we all just have barriers in our way of experiencing ourselves as that. I think Rumi captures this pretty well: “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.'“
To summarize, Matsu Love is about:
Connecting with the divine.
Caring for yourself as the sacred vessel that you are.
Creating a hopeful future for yourself and your family.
Healing your history and the history of your family so that the future for your children is an open, blank, canvas.
Choosing to create a new Self over and over from an intentional future, rather than a default past.
Removing barriers within ourselves that block us from our experience of unconditional love.
It all sounds very poetic, but how can you apply these ideas to your daily routine of meals, snacks, diapers, and correcting “I want milk” to “Can I have some milk, please?”
Here are some quick and accessible ways that you can start giving yourself more Matsu Love:
A very quick and easy way to connect with divine love is to put your hand on your heart, close your eyes, and think about 5 people that you love. Picture each person in your mind and hold them in your heart, and imagine you are sending them love and light directly from your heart’s center. Start with 10 seconds per person and end your practice with a simple “Thank you for this love.”
Drink 16oz of water with some lemon and mineral salt first thing in the morning before you drink coffee or tea.
Start your morning with an intention. To create an intention, you can simply answer one of these questions: What do I want to practice today? Who do I want to be? What do I want to experience? Set some alarms in your phone to remind yourself to connect with your intention throughout the day.
BONUS: Set aside 1 hour for yourself. Light a candle, play some inspirational music that you love, and write a list of 100 goals for our lifetime - desires, wishes, places you want to go, things you want to experience. Imagine it is a magical list and everything on it will come true if you write it down - what are your wishes?
