February Monthly Quip

Hey out there, dear reader,  I love you. 

And here we are in the season of Saint Valentine celebrating everybody’s favorite four letter word – and that is “food.” No just kidding, it’s really “love.” And you know I love you. And to prove it, here are a few love notions coming your way as my valentine to you, (Pucker up!), sealed with a kiss. (Kiss, kiss!)

On Valentine’s Day we celebrate one kind of love, the ever popular romantic love.  That’s the kind that you fall into and will break your heart, and that you spoon, moon, croon a loony tune and go to ruin for; and sigh and cry and wanna die for, too. It all sounds extremely painful, but it’s a great ride, and there are few among us who will refuse it.

But all you romantics out there should be aware that according to recent scientific research our attraction for one another is not really a matter of choice, but arises out of a deep biochemical programming. It turns out that the “feeling” we call love is first triggered when we smell each other, a process well known to the canines among us.

Furthermore, this “feeling” of love becomes serious only after your “selfish” genes decide that they have found a good vehicle to ride them into the future – a suitable body for their continued replication. So basically, when we are moved to say, “I love you” it’s really our DNA talking, saying, “I love me. Let’s have sex with this person.” And the reason that the kissing and the sex feel so good, is because nature wants us to be obsessed with mixing our DNA together, on the chance that some variations will appear that will be able to survive the changes that Mother Nature has in store for us in the next few millennia. It’s a process called “natural selection,” and I have great hopes that some of my DNA will make the cut, although in the end it probably won’t matter to “me” at all.

There are other kinds of love that we don’t talk about much on Valentine’s Day — such as, the “big” love, the love that reaches out to everybody. It’s the Jesus and Buddha and Mother Mary, and Gandhi and Dalai Lama kind of love. It’s the love inside the Hindu greeting “namaste” which means that I honor the divine within you, that essential light that shines through all our quirky personalities and joins us together in this common incarnation. And even though this can be a difficult kind of love to feel, it can be practiced. There are meditation techniques and prayers that can teach us how to pump up and radiate our love vibes, preparing us to play in the Olympics of love.

So try it with me now. I dare you. Practice loving every single person you can imagine.  How about conjuring up an image of your least favorite political tyrant or that difficult neighbor and then send them some love. Remember they also have mothers. Maybe it would help if you imagine the disgusting politician reading to their grandchildren, or cuddling up to their partner in bed. Because just maybe, if we all send the reprehensible characters some love they will feel it – and stop being such nasty, mean-spirited, selfish, horrible, creepy…whoops!  I guess I need more practice.

But there is still another kind of love — the oceanic love; the love that includes all of creation in its heart. As the poet D. H. Lawrence wrote, “What a catastrophe, what a maiming of love when it became merely between persons, and was taken away from the rising and setting of the sun.”  This oceanic love was also well expressed by the great Chilean poet Pablo Neruda when he wrote an ode to his socks. This is the kind of love that pays attention to the earth and the seasons, and embraces all of life, including death. This is the mystic’s love for the mystery of creation, just the way it is – perfect in its imperfection. That’s the kind of love to which we can all aspire. I suspect that it feels really good.

And here’s suggesting that you practice love for the world, and as always, if you don’t like the news go out and make some of your own. 

Wes