featured image | by Jeremy Goldberg 

 

“Whence is it that the sun and planets gravitate toward one another?”
— Sir Isaac Newton

Love, Eros, and Beauty

The story of the universe, like the story of humanity, is a love story. It is a grand tale of attraction. What is love if not the power of allurement? Without love—the unseen force that binds things together—the solar system, our galaxy, and, for that matter, all galaxies, would simply break apart. Nothing would work. Instead, everything holds together.

Scientists call this force of attraction gravity. But gravity is not something that has ever been truly understood—not by Newton, or by anyone since. All we know of gravity is that it exists. What is the force that makes the moon want to be with the Earth and the Earth want to be with the Sun?

You could call it gravity, but that is such a grave term for allurement. We might as well call it Love.

Love and eros are life-creating, life-preserving instincts. They are the driving forces of evolution. These life forces preexisted humanity, and are not solely or uniquely human. For human existence on Earth to evolve, certain catalyzing events had to first occur. For example, cyanobacteria, which contains chlorophyll, were necessary to create photosynthesis, the process by which sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water combine to produce sugar and oxygen required for an atmosphere conducive to mammals (including humans). Then, viruses, protozoa, and fungi needed to venture on land to prepare the soil for other sea vegetation to follow.

It was the pioneering fungi that enabled the plants to root in the land, and this freed up the minerals and nutrients the plants depended upon for their nourishment.

The movement from the oceans to the land was a great act of love. It was an expression of life force of which humanity is part of, but not the creator. The birth of humanity is often mistakenly interpreted as a separation from the natural and microbial world. Nothing could be further from the truth. Bacteria, viruses, and other microorganisms constitute more than 50 percent of our cells and 3 percent of our body weight. The flowering of humanity has not ended our radical interdependence upon the microbial world; nor has it represented a break from the watery oceans.

Our bodies contain approximately 70 percent water, in equal measure to the oceans covering the surface of the planet. It is no wonder that our oldest stories speak of our connection to the oceans. Everything on Earth comes from the sea.

The late Dan Moonhawk Alford liked to tell the story of when he first saw the ocean as a ten-year-old child. Awestruck, he turned to his father and said, “Dad, that sure is a lot of water out there.” His father replied, “Yep. And that’s just the top of it.”

Moonhawk often told that story to illustrate his own experience of the depth of Native American wisdom. He felt humbled by the depth of Native wisdom, which like all wisdom, is steeped in multiple layers of experience.

The sea is a particularly fitting symbol for depth of wisdom because it originally seemed bottomless. It was so deep we could not initially fathom (get our arms around) its depths. Thus, we measure the depth of water using the reference point of fathoms (units of approximately six feet each). Not coincidentally, the ocean became the original symbol of the collective unconscious. It represents the sum of all knowledge, much of it unfathomable.

The ocean is not only deep; it is timeless. It is a symbol for deep knowledge and Deep Time. Deep Time is completely different than transient, clock time. It is infinite—a time beyond measure. It never began and will never end.

Ultimately, time is a resource, not a measurement; it is a well, a source, or an eternal spring. It is ineffable and unknowable, mysterious and sacred.

Oceanic consciousness continues to nourish and heal us, even as we can never fully grasp its meaning.

The Faces of Love

Love has many faces. One of them is the aforementioned eros, a primordial life force; another is beauty. In Greek mythology, Eros is the son of Chaos. But he is also said to be the son of Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty. Love, beauty, eros, and the seas (water) are all interconnected. They are part of the kinetic, flowing energy of life.

Aphrodite is the offspring of Uranus and Gaia (Mother Earth), who together have a son named Cronos, depicted with a sickle (also known as Kronos, or the personification of Time). Cronos used the sickle to castrate his father and threw his father’s testicles into the sea. This caused the sea to foam, and out of that, arose Aphrodite. This story speaks to our origins in the deep sea. The testes are the seed of future generations. But love, eros, and beauty are not only our future; they are also our past, because the ocean is timeless.

Love, eros, and beauty are original energies of nature. They are archetypal energy patterns indelibly imprinted in the human psyche. They cannot be created or destroyed. Love can foster creativity, but you cannot create love. It has always been here.

Love is the original force that moved the Creator to bring forth the breath of creation. Unity without difference is boring. Spirit must have a mate. Out of the One comes two, and from the two, the many things.

Love and Beauty Require Relationship

Oneness without another holds no erotic charge. For something to be beautiful, there must be sacred or divine proportionality between things. Proportion requires relationship. Eros is the instigator. When Eros draws his bow, he aims to instill the flame of attraction.

For there to be an erotic spark, there must be difference, although not necessarily the difference of masculine and feminine. It is opposites that attract because they complement, if not complete each other.

Love, eros, and beauty are the universal forces of nature that desire and require relationship. Our love must be expressed or we wither and die like flowers without water. This does not mean that love need be shared only with humans or only with the opposite sex. Speaking to the beloved in all of creation is the highest expression of love.

However we express our love, we must not hold back, or when eros washes over us we will be surely drowned as if a tidal wave engulfed our shore. Love is an unstoppable force as powerful as the moon and tides. Love between humans can be beautiful, but original love is much larger than human.

Love and water, life, humanity, plant, tree, animal and mineral, were originally all family. We all came from the sea and grew up together. We are water beings, connected through water. This is a large part of what makes us relatives. We came from water, and we have never really separated from water.

Water is our lifeblood. Our hearts are made of water. The arteries, veins, and capillaries that carry our blood are like the rivers, streams, and brooks that flow out to the ocean. Water connects our hearts to the world. Our hearts beat in rhythm with the heartbeat of nature.

Cycle of Water, Cycle of Life

It is not a coincidence that water moves in a circle. A cloudburst brings the water of life to the surface of Earth. As the rainwater penetrates into the roots of plants and trees, the dry soil awakens, as if missing the kisses from her long-lost lover.

Moisture continues to permeate the soil before moving to the rivers and streams that eventually flow back to the ocean, evaporate into the atmosphere, build up the clouds, and then continue the cycle anew. Some rainwater moves downward, purposefully, to fill Mother Earth’s underground rivers. These rivers are like thoughts that move underground; they have their own timing and wisdom. They can bubble up when needed, but ordinarily influence creation in a more subtle way, from afar.

The underground waters and the clouds are like separated lovers, writing romantic letters to each other. They are not really apart because they remain in contact, in reciprocal communication, according to the Hopi. They complete each other even while they are distant.

They are made of the same substances: hydrogen and oxygen. But “hydrogen” and “oxygen” are technical terms that belie the quality of water’s vibration.

“The vibration of water,” according to the Mayan seer Flordemayo, “is love and light.”

When we drink healthy water, we nourish our hearts, feed our soul, and gain life force.

Thirst and Eros

Because water is life, Eros is related to thirst.

“Love is the water of life; jump into this water,” implores Rumi.

Our love comes from a deeper well than what is human. Our thirst for love, our ability to love and cherish, comes from water.

When the underground rivers are thirsty, they cry out to the Cloud People, calling for the rains to come down. It is the love between the Groundwater and Sky Water that brings the rains.

The hydrological cycle is a mirror of the sacred hoop of life. The hoop expands to include every expression of life, and water is the means by which all life is brought together. Plants, humans, and other animals can never be far from water or we perish.

Curiously, we tend to identify ourselves only by the land mass upon which we were born. Oceans are similarly identified by the coastal territories to which they are nearest. There are many names for oceans: Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, and so forth. But there is only one ocean. It flows everywhere there is not land. It is in this way that all the people are interconnected through the waters of the world.

It is not only the people that are interconnected through water. All living organisms are connected in the same manner, from insects, to plants, trees, and animals. Even rocks contain water. The waters above the sky and under the earth are in communication with each other; the trees and mountains act as their emissaries, bridging Mother Earth and Father Sky.

It is not a coincidence that trees proliferate on mountains, where they are closer to the heavens. Mountains and trees are in love with clouds, and the clouds reciprocate. The mountains lure the cloud cover that attracts the rains that feed the valleys. It is in this way that the mountains protect the valleys.

They nourish the soils that create the fruited plain that feeds plants and animals, including people.

Plants and trees are close relatives. People feel better when living in places where green roots are nearby. Whether we realize it or not, plants and trees love us.

In some Native languages, the word for plants translates to “those who take care of us.” They offer themselves as medicine if we listen to them. Indigenous peoples say that the first medicines were not developed by trial and error. They were given to us.

The trees and plants offered medicine to us in the same way that they exchange the gift of oxygen that we return to them as carbon dioxide. That is our gift to the trees, completing a sacred circle.

Trees, people, animals, and phytoplankton from the ocean have been interdependent since time immemorial. We cannot live without them, and they cannot live without us (mammals).

It is the same with love. We cannot live without love any more than we can live without light, air, water, and earth.

Love is the cord that connects all the elements. It is the original force that moves spirit into action.

Love and eros are sacred, because they evoke the whole. Eros awakens the pulse of life, enabling love’s sacred energy to permeate all things.

When you are in love, the lover is in everything you see. Every blade of grass, every flower, every sunrise and sunset whisper sweet nothings in your ear. We don’t really know what love is any more than we know what gravity is, but we know it makes us feel good. We feel alive, whole, and healthy. We feel seen. We feel blessed, comforted, and protected.

Love is what saves us when we feel the universe is hopelessly complicated, chaotic and random. Complexity need not be scary. The original meaning of complex is to be surrounded, encircled, embraced, and braided together. All of creation is woven together with love, in a myriad of patterns of interconnections and feedback loops that self-organize and organically replicate in countless fractals of repetition.

We see these fractals everywhere—in seedheads, flowers, and plants. They remind us of the abundant fertility of nature while teaching us that love is complex, deep, and beautiful beyond measure.

To Love is to Respect

In many Indigenous cultures, the words for love and respect are synonymous. There may be phrases for saying “I love you,” but these expressions are rarely used.

For instance, Navajo expressions ayóó aníínishní or ayóó nishnė are generally translated as “I love you”—but aníínishní actually means “regard” or “respect.” There has never been an exact Navajo equivalent for the English “love.”

Simply put, to love is to respect.

And love is not limited to human relations. To respect all of the natural world is to understand the human as an integral part of creation, nothing more and nothing less. We are made of the same light, air, water, and earth as all creatures—plant, animal, or mineral.

We may imagine we are separate, transcendent, and superior from nature, but that is only our imagination.

We can never succeed in separating ourselves from nature. We are animals. We are nature.

 

Excerpted with kind permission of the author, from: Original Love: Uncovering the Timeless Source of Wholeness; (forthcoming, Fall, 2025, SelectBooks, NYC)

Check back to pre-order from Select Books.

Return to the table-of-contents for this Issue, What Water Can Teach Us