February 4, 2003    Love

GREETINGS AND SALUTATIONS from Arnold's Way!

It was the beginning of time
A foreign leaf hid its hidden delight
The sun rose majestically beyond the cloud
A man stares in disbelief while a woman
Watches closely as if she already knew
These are times that stand still
These are the moments that continually repeat
These are the times that ask for no regret
These are the times in which we should be in love

It is a wintry evening when silence rings out with the T.V. blaring in only nonsensical rhyme. I feel the quiet air. I feel the night approach. It is with these thoughts that I start this week's newsletter. It is one of those topics that rings hush, hush in my heart. It was a subject that I dare not even breath, let alone write about. It is one of those subjects when digging ditches in sub-zero weather would have been preferred. I dare not reveal, I dare not say. My words of truth come echoing down memory lane.

I write of LOVE. Not the love for another, but rather for myself. There is no gushy language of ill repute. There are no sassy games of what is right to say or right to do. It is an honest reflection, not of my thoughts, not even what my heart yearns for. It is a demand for excellence that scours my very soul. In a final statement that knows no gray, it is a love that has been from the beginning of time.

I am humbled by loves existence. I stand alone to be alone. As a purveyor of endless words and thoughts that hide in the closet of ill repute, I dare not think an ill thought, for my body loves. Know not of danger, but only purity in action. We as a people gather our shame, gather our dis-ease, and gather our depression. These are not words of self-love. My heart grows in anxious fear. The words come flowing. I tremble with excited thought the love of oneself is always an overflow. Always working for our highest good, always without a single mistake. It is this sanction of excellence that guides our path.

To begin, or rather continue, for we as a nation, as a world, are continuations of a greater force that knows no boundaries, in thought or in words, but that too can be open for discussion. So, as I attempted to say before, as we continue our journey of love, of self- expression, selflessness, the word brain becomes a blur of intellectual pseudonyms. In World Medicine by Tom Monte I read the words " a vast and mysterious frontier, a universe within a hardened shell". These words, vast in explanation, are limited to the brain's finite abilities. To paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald, 'the brain is not like any other organ. It is beyond biology, beyond science. It is the alter of the body, the root of the mind. It is a place where visible and invisible meet, where flesh…', I stop in mid-thought. The brain is beyond omnipotent. The essence of life is very simple. No brain. No life. No love. No nothing.

What seems complicated is miniscule to what is. Is there a love story here? Absolutely. For lack of a better word, it's undying. What it does can only be explained by what it doesn't do. I sit in quiet respect. I sit in quiet silence. My brain, my body, myself, all requires excellence, requires love. What we think, eat, say, all of these things require love. To refer back to World Medicine, "a diet rich in fat and cholesterol causes arteriosclerosis or cholesterol plaques to form in the arteries leading to the brain".

How can I phrase this in a gentler manner? Is there some sort of silver platter that I can present this on to those who would shrug their shoulders and laugh off the seemingly concrete implications of what happens when we do not show love to our bodies? Am I speaking of self-love, or are they correct in their accusations that I am merely attempting to advance my own beliefs of what to do or what to believe?

We let our emotions roll downward and out. We let our hands flow upwards. We take a deep breath and scan the room. We hear the water drip. What are the odds of this being a random selection? Stanislav Grot wrote that the probability that human consciousness and our infinitely complex universe could have come into existence through the random interactions of inert matter has aptly been compared to that of a tornado blowing through a junkyard and assembling a 747 jet.

So we read the words. We think of our jobs and careers. We think of our daily rituals and relationships, of money and clothes…and then we scream and yell and finally release all of the guilt within. Does it all really matter? Is there a god above or a devil below? Do these words seek solace, or merely a distorted revenge of some sort?

I continue writing of love, of the complete picture. Our breath is a gift of love to ourselves. Is there anything or anybody more worthy of this gift than us? I think not. Then shall we take this gift of love and shove it to the wayside?

I close my eyes; the very same eyes that can perceive ten billion graduations of light and seven billion shades of color. The same eyes whose anatomical parts are numbered close to a billion. Do we honor this truth and give continual thanks for this blessed love, this love that is rooted in a greater force? Or do we loose these obvious truths and never-ending gifts and forge ahead on a dissimilar path of self-destruction? We gather our daily bread. We eat meat. We chatter with our friends about who's who in this year's news. We scream and yell and complain. Our thought perception of what is truth, what is lie. What should we buy? What should we give in order for us to feel complete?

We gather the love. I gather the love with every movement of the pen, with every word. We read of the complexities of the brain, the complexities of the eye; the intricacies of love. There is a total dependency of action that creates the flow of wisdom between all of these. Again to quote World Medicine, "when light hits the rods and cones, it interacts with vitamin A to create an electrical signal that flows from the retina to the vision center of the brain thus allowing us to see images". Imagine that our eyes see the self-love that is transcended into the beauty of a quiet walk, or a vision of a leaf falling. A tree lined street. Visions of the continually flowing events. It's an endless orgy of beauty, one that knows no boundaries.

I feel the love, for in the end that's all we have. There really is no one who truly listens and cares about us as much as we potentially can for ourselves. I hear the echoes of a thousand sounds reverberating from a distant past to the present moment. Our wonderful ears make this possible. We look around. Are there those who are born without ears? Are there those who abuse and consequently loose their hearing abilities? Our ears are our gift. They not only allow us to hear, but they help to maintain our sense of balance. What causes the loss of hearing? What causes the loss of sight? What causes the loss of mental clarity? As we further our studies, a pattern begins to emerge. A high fat diet causes arteriosclerosis in the tiny vessels and arteries of the hearing mechanism. Is there a law of self-truth? Can a high fat diet be justified? Is Murphy's Law playing havoc with our inner harmony? Are there due consequences for deciding who shall live, die, or be eaten?

Are we a nation of peace that dares to eat families of cows for the sake of a good meal? Neal Barnard M.D. writes, " when volunteers eat a high protein meal they loose calcium in their urine". Do we research more? Do we read the studies about those who choose to eat the high fat, high cholesterol, and high protein diets that come dead and wrapped in cellophane containers? The average African tribesperson does not suffer any hearing loss, even at age seventy. Shall we sit and compare notes. As we review the diets of countries around the world, we find that the Finnish people have the highest per capita blood cholesterol levels in the world, 290mg., and consequently the highest rate of heart disease.

Do I continue? Do I talk of self-love and self-destruction in the same breath? Is there honor in praising the word of god and then sitting down to eat the flesh of what was once a living creature? Is there love in our heart knowing this has occurred?

I close my eyes and cover my ears and let my mind wonder to ports unknown where there are no boundaries that keep words of beauty locked away in a tin cage of prescribed thoughts and actions. I smell the victory. I hear the chant of a thousand voices. We have the ability to distinguish literally thousands of odors and fragrances and to somehow remember them for the rest of our lives. We are the foot soldiers of miraculous conception. Each happening, each miracle, each cell is the result of an artist at work. I am humbled by each stroke of harmonious reflection of peace. Is it not love that creates this for my doing?

I eat the raisins. I taste the H₂O. I smell the pine sol. I hear the T.V. It's all happening right before me without energy, without effort, without any normal resistance from this thing occurring. I go wild with the power of being in charge. I taste the H₂O. I see the grape. I listen to the crunch of the raisin and the echoes of the T.V., all within seconds of each other, all for my enjoyment. I am rich in scenario details. My cup runneth over.

My heart is filled with information that reverberates like a strong engine with pistons of molten steel. There are no sore losers or broken hearts. One's loneliness is shattered by a symphony of cellular activity. Can we as a people continually justify emotional distraught without knowing the mechanism of the deliverer? Is there a universal energy raising above us that satisfies every detail? Our hearts are broken, yet still it continues to beat. It beats between sixty to eighty times a minute, one hundred thousand times a day, and if we should live to sixty-five or seventy, that adds up to almost 2.5 billion times. Can we really feel the pain of our hearts beating to its own rhythm? Can we yearn for more love when there is already love that has its own tune? Can we talk of love while at the same time consuming a diet high in fats, cholesterol, and protein; with a diet containing dead animals? How gruesome. How true. How sick. The heart is made up of two pumps working together in unison, in precise coordinated action. Each pump has a job, a designated position, and a distribution system that sends the blood where it needs to go. I pray for this innate harmony to seek its own solace. It is never without fault. Can we as a people ask for anything more? As every truth sings its own merriment, the love of death, of dead meat, also sings its own disease. As noted in World Medicine, Food for Life, and study after study, approximately sixty million Americans suffer from cardiovascular disease cause by saturated fats and cholesterol. These are the facts of life. There is a love for ourselves that shines above our ignorance of dietary choices.

Shall I offer forgiveness for my bluntness and squash my thoughts, allowing the love to flow aimlessly through the winter nights and summer days? As we understand the beating of the heart we begin to understand the cleansing of our life force. The kidneys filter and cleanse. They separate what is essential and what is waste. Every hour on the hour, every minute on the minute, for how ever long it takes. It does this out love for who we are. It's that simple. The beauty of it all enamors me. An excerpt from World Medicine reads, "the kidneys perform these tasks with miraculous efficiency. About two and a half pints of blood pass through the kidneys every minute, or about four hundred and fifty gallons per day". The kidney is about four to five inches in length. Is there some sort of divine mystery at work here for such a small organ to perform such large tasks?

We delve into the minute long transactions that are continuously taking place. We study the liver. We think of self-love without emotional attachments. Once again we turn to World Medicine, " the bodies largest internal organ and reservoir of blood, the liver is a remarkable chemical laboratory that plays a major role in digesting foods, eliminating wastes, preventing infection, and producing essential blood elements". All of this is happening out of bodily charm and magic given to my unconsciousness for my benefit of living life free, without remorse. I have to understand the language of communication. There is no room for wayward thoughts of emotional release. What we do, see, and breath is what we are…an eternal flow of self-love to be honored and cherished. To live the eternal secrets so imbedded in our daily lives. An internal truth that shall guide our every moment; from what we eat, to what we see, to what we think.

I close by choosing my fun, my joy, by loving myself, for I have been chosen.

I thank you for your time.

Arnold

References

World Medicine by: Tom Monte

Food For Life by: Neal Bernard M.D.