What is love, and how do people recognize it across different cultures, communities, relationships, and ways of life? In this episode, licensed professional counselor Josh Korac speaks with writer, educator, and adventurer Scotte Burns about Journeys to Love, a multimedia project created with his wife, Toni, to explore the nature, meaning, and experience of love. Scotte shares how one simple question, “What is love?”, became a years-long journey across the United States. Traveling by motorcycle through 48 states, Scotte and Toni gathered stories from people with different backgrounds, beliefs, identities, and life experiences. Their goal was not to find one narrow definition, but to understand what people have in common when they experience love, belonging, grief, meaning, and connection. Josh and Scotte discuss love as more than a feeling or romantic experience. Scotte describes love as a kind of human sense that helps people recognize connection, value, and shared humanity. They explore how love may appear through acknowledgment, attention, service, sacrifice, curiosity, and the willingness to see another person more fully. The conversation also examines the relationship between love and consciousness. Scotte reflects on whether love helps people move beyond isolation and recognize that they are part of something larger than themselves. Josh and Scotte discuss collective consciousness, meaning-making, spirituality, and the limits of understanding love through psychology alone. They also explore grief as a disruption in a person’s experience of love and connection. When someone or something deeply meaningful is lost, grief may feel like the sudden absence of a familiar way of sensing the world. Scotte discusses how love can remain present through memory, relationship, and the meaning we continue to carry. In this episode, you will learn about: • The origins of the Journeys to Love project • How people define and experience love differently • What diverse communities may share in their understanding of love • Love as connection, acknowledgment, and shared humanity • The relationship between love, meaning, and consciousness • Why love may be more than an emotion • How travel and storytelling can challenge assumptions • Finding love in unexpected people and places • The relationship between grief and lost connection • How everyday acts can communicate care and belonging • Why listening to another person’s story matters • The possibility that love reminds us we are not alone Scotte Burns is a writer, adventurer, and longtime English, creative writing, and geosciences educator. Alongside his wife, Toni, he created Journeys to Love to document stories about the nature, meaning, and unity of love. Their travels have taken them more than 100,000 miles through 48 states while meeting people from a wide range of American cultures and communities. Learn more through the Journeys to Love YouTube channel and follow the project at @journeys_to_love. Josh Korac is a licensed professional counselor in Colorado who specializes in trauma, family estrangement, loneliness, and complex relationship concerns. He is also the Lead Moderator of Estrangement.com. Learn more about Josh at joshuakorac.com. This podcast is for educational purposes and does not constitute mental health treatment, diagnosis, spiritual direction, or an established therapeutic relationship.