| INSPIRING PAGES : Love and the Single Atom by Jinjer Stanton Usually, when we hear the word love, we leap to the conclusion that mutual love between two humans is the basic purpose and nature of love. In reality, the essence of love is elemental. We are made of love, although we often forget that basic fact. But this beautiful "hymn to love" is here to remind us a simple truth. I have lain awake late at night yearning for someone to hold me, to love me. I have argued with the Universe over whether I deserved the kind of love I wanted or should settle for the kind that was offered. And when at last the tears were cried out (guaranteeing a savage headache the next day), I would lie empty and silent. That was when the Universe began to whisper in my ear. It said: "There is nothing so certain as love, for love is the substance of which the universe is made." It came to me that the breeze that stirred my curtain is made of love and that the pillow still damp from my tears was made of love. What's more, I could feel it. I could feel it in the way the bed supported me and the way the air filled my lungs. It was clear and obvious from the stirring of the leaves outside my window and the glow of my digital alarm clock. My emptiness began to fill. Soon, I understood that the very tissues of my body are made of love. I am made of love. There is no escaping love no matter how hard one works to be evil and unlovable. Those who manage to alienate their fellow humans or other living beings cannot escape the love that composes their blood and bones. They cannot escape the love that the air they breathe is made of. Realizing this, I began to relax into being who I am, knowing that love is with me whether I see it or not. It's been a few years since this experience and still I feel the truth of it vibrating through me. So often, we hear the word love and leap to the conclusion that mutual love between two humans is the basic purpose and nature of love. But the essence of love is elemental. It does not require a subject. I am sitting outside my house just now during a winter thaw. The melt water dripping from the roof is composed of love. The cement step it splashes upon is also composed of love. I hear birds calling to one another behind me in the lilac bush, and not only are their feathered bodies made of love, but so is the slumbering lilac bush and even the bird calls themselves from junco chirp to crow's caw. The barberry bush that shelters sparrow from crow and the mottled carpet of bird dung beneath it are all made of love. We value the bird more than its dung, but the barberry does not. It fully recognizes the value of that fertilizer waiting to happen. How can it be made of anything but love? So, what does it mean, when out of the ground of being, out of the universal substance of life that IS love, a particular individual steps forward to touch our individual souls and calls out from us this other manifestation of love? What does it mean when that man steps into my life (or woman steps into yours) from a personal history unknown and incomprehensible to me to engage all my yearnings, to call forth from me a hunger? What does it mean that only his lips, arms and soul can feed me? Perhaps it is that our frail human nervous systems could not absorb the fullness of love in the universe. We are voluntarily autistic, taking in only the smallest part of it in our daily lives lest it overwhelm us. And perhaps, to fully understand the nature of that love, we must narrow our focus to that one man, that one woman. Then, see the circle it makes as it goes out and comes back in. Once we've got that down pretty well, those who wish to can amp things up with a baby. Ask any new parent about the depth of love they feel for their child. So often they say they never imagined they could love anyone so much. Love, awareness of the richness of love in the universe, is vital to survival. Without consciousness of the love out of which we all are made, life seems flat and colorless. We dismiss things. We dismiss the tools in our lives; the pen in my hand, the mug that holds my coffee. We dismiss the dandelions in the lawn and the nettles among the bushes. Yet each of these things vibrates with love. Who grows with greatest vigor?
Dandelion, plantain, and nettle
Homely names for homely plants
They bloom and grow diligently
At our ancestor's request "Bring up from the Earth her strength
That we may be strong " "Bring up from the Earth her vitality
That we may be vital " The green people brought back
From the Earth's heart
Medicine and food
Beauty and Joy "Be well, humanity, we love thee." There are things on this Earth that, like stars, we may never touch with our own hands, yet there is love between us. There is love between the stars and all beings on this world, because we are all made of the same stuff. Love is here in this place
Wherever here is
And it wells up
From stone and grass
From soil and wood
Love vibrates in the fibers
Of the polyester carpet
And the artificial excitement
Blatting from thin air
There is love in every breath
In every ray of light
In absolute darkness
And the vacuum of space
It is here in me
My bones and blood
Love made me
Through its own fervent wish
To look out at the world
Through my eyes Copyright © 1999 Jinjer Stanton | 
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