what's love got to do with it?

Excuse me if I get a bit mushy and sentimental but I'm going to talk about the "L" word: Love.

Words are just metaphors for reality, an attempt to explain the unexplainable so why not talk in terms that are simple, understandable to all humans.

I'm interested in love as a metaphor for that intangible force that bonds us together at a collective level and at a cellular level. As young babies we are unable to do anything except curl and flex with the muscles of our abdomen, chest, hands etc. Alone, this curling constitutes a protective stance, the "fetal" position. In yoga, they refer to this as child's pose because it is the first posture we develop. But put a teddy bear in the arms of that child or a parent and see this pose for what it is. An Embrace.

Thomas talks about love being the force of gravity. It is love that holds the cosmos together, swirling around in the seeming infiniteness of space. Why do the planets not fly away from each other, what keeps the universe in it's beautiful spiraling form? Love.

He talks again about love at the cellular level, bonding atoms together to form chromosomes, chromosomes together form organisms, and organisms together form societies, culture. When you get down to it, there is no "me" and "you", we are just swirling masses of energy with no more structure that a stream of water or the air around us. So how do we have arms, legs, minds. How do distinct Somas develop and flourish in this world? perhaps that unifying, structure enabling force is love.

And why not, is love any worse a term for that force than gravity?

Someone conveyed a story to me the other day. A group of sled dogs came in close proximity to a polar bear. The polar bear went into an aggressive stance and the world wisened dogs, responding in kind, started barking. But before an altercation took place, a young puppy, new to this world bounded towards the Polar Bear. Fearless and joyful with curiosity and love, the dog ran up to the bear. And they didn't fight, instead the bear and dog began to play, rolling around in the snow.

We assume that because war and aggression are so prevalent in modern and past societies that we are inherently aggressive and warlike. But I propose that aggression and competition are learned things, taught from society. When children first begin to move it is not out of fear, it is out of curiosity. Early Somatic thinkers referred to this as a joy response. At a young age we move towards something because deep down we are all driven by love.

The need to protect, the need to distance ourselves, create boundaries, assert our individualism, fight. These are all things that are taught to us, consciously and unconsciously and are very much in opposition to what I view as our true and most basic instinct... to love.