Over time some words get used so frequently that often one tends to start to deviate from their origin; as such we start to misuse the word to fit the society of the time.

The word LOVE is not impervious to these changes. We seem to think of love in a very different way than our ancestors did — if someone in our society were to mention the word love, we would all more or less think of just about the same thing; with some variations based on place, culture, traditions, as these do impact our understanding of a concept.

The word love meant something incongruous with the idea we have of love. Most of us associate the word love with some of the artistic or poetic description as of the ancient Greeks and Romans; however, we often make the mistake of relegating just about anything to these two cultures, as if they were the originators or discoverers of everything. Very rarely do we look into very ancient cultures to look at what their idea on a particular something was. We make the mistake of associating ancient cultures with societies incapable of complex structuring mentally, spiritually and archeologically. This is a fatal mistake, for although such a reality might have been true for many ancient peoples, there were cultures far advanced and worth looking at.

So, let’s take a closer look at the word love and its various historical definitions….

For the Hellenes, there were different kinds of love, and they were all defined by their own terms. The most similar to our current concept of love is Eros, that is, the desire between a man and a woman; but Eros was not a movement of the will, much less of thought, but was imposed on man from outside, a kind of destiny if you will, of mysterious design.

Philia, on the other hand, defined love between friends…friendship, an idea that for the Greeks embodied perfect love. On the other hand, there was the Storgo, a kind of family, communal love; and finally, Agape, unconditional love, often relegated to the terrain of the gods. The “perfect” love or most advantageous balance for couples then, would be a combination of Eros and Philia…Philia being the foundation (a deep friendship) and Eros being desire kept alive –hard to do in our society and in next week’s article I will elaborate more as to why…. let’s get back to the topic of the word LOVE.

Now let’s look at the word Love according to the Romans…The word “amor“, as it is in the Spanish language, is written the same as its Latin version, only it is stressed in the first “a,” since there are no sharp words in Latin. The meaning of the word “love” in Latin is quite obscure. For a long time, it was believed to be a compound word (A-Mor), where A means “without” and Mor functions as a contraction of Mortem, “death”, resulting in “without death” or beyond death — a hypothesis on which many romantics relied to draw a parallel between love and eternity. It was a fairly common misconception that A constituted a negative prefix in Latin; however, as we get towards the end of the first part of this article, you will understand why in Latin, their definition although contradictory to their “traditional” word association, actually is closer to the truth of what LOVE signified in origin….

It is in the northern and western languages however, that the word “love” becomes virtually indefinable. In old English there was the word Lufu, which designated a certain affection and knowledge of the other, but in no way “love” in the sense we understand today. The Frisians said Liaf, the Germans Lieb, the Gothic Liufs, but at no time was it used as a verb until the Germans conjugated the famous Liebe. This is very interesting, because it points out that love was a condition of the individual, and not an act, that is, one could feel love, but could not love others in the way we understand it today.

What then can we say about lovers? If we are guided by words alone, there was not a single lover in England until well into 1500 AD, when “being in love” was recorded, to be in love.

Sex, on the other hand, ran parallel to love with terms that did not even touch each other. The first-time sex was associated with the word “love“ was in an anonymous epistle from 1570, where love-make worked more as a euphemism than as a poetic tool to avoid scaring away ladies. But love has one last mystery in store for us, and that may make us rethink its use in relationships of an epidermal nature. What if I told you that love was not a word to describe something, but love was language of its own, which has been forgotten. And that such language is now being rediscovered (at least its independent existence) by science, and that language is not based on dogmatic ideas of self-annihilation, melting of self, or unchecked forgiveness without processing of emotion. What if I told you that love is a complex yet simple language that balances the right and left hemispheres not only of our brain but our whole being; in that case LOVE can only be understood and used by those who are able to recognize and integrate light and darkness within…as long as we keep trying to be kill the shadow or label it as not needed or bad, or as long as we try dissolve the ego and melt all into the same, and as long as we let dogma dictate that love is forgiving everything and anything, we are not capable of learning the actual language of love….a balance between thinking and feeling…justice and kindness…the sword and the rose.

Scientist have discovered the heart has neurons of its own. These neurons are uber complex, more so than the ones we find in our brain — hence capable of nearly perfect executing of the pumping of blood, oxygen and nutrients. It does this INDEPENDENT of brain functioning….so the brain has the ability to understand this reality and take abstract into concrete thinking. But the heart neurons if utilized properly, go further than that. The brain cannot affect the heart, but the heart can affect the brain. The brain then becomes more or less the tool, and the heart’s language the power behind the wheel –this does not mean we don’t need the brain; please don’t fall to extremes, without the brain we would not survive…it is a more symbiotic relationship which was severed long ago. By shutting down the heart’s language, dogma achieved a great triumph –it took something powerful and turn it into ideas of love meant to keep one as a beggar, or as they like to say “humble”– but the language of the heart does not act based on humbleness but on simplicity. You see, humble means below something, while living in simplicity means to flow –nothing to do with giving up on balancing material life with spiritual life.

And what is the past of this perfect love language? the symbol of perfect love for primitive man, submerged in the dawn of time, where rocks, sky and trees embodied the hostility of nature and its rudimentary deities? Naturally, the first movement of man as an ominid towards man as creator of feelings…in search for the womb, the mother…the totality…the divine.

I am not talking about just any mother or human womb but the womb of the earth, the mother who nourishes us in the flesh and receives us in the grave; the human mother then is the echo of the womb of the earth, and these two are but echoes of an even deeper concept, the concept of the divine womb of creation, not generation — for in the bible we are talking about a story not of creation but of generation. For to create is to start from nothing, to generate is to use what is there to come up with new things. The divine force was there before it was use for any type of “creation” later on recorded by various religious branches. Something I will discuss further when I write in what I am calling “Gnosticism at its roots”. Let’s get back to love….

The word “love” was twisted into concepts with foolish gods and precarious fears– people who forgot about love as an actual language of its own and instead utilize it as a metaphor, archetype, to further understand the world which surrounded them. Something of interest to point out, Love within the language of the ancient Indo European is rooted on “Amma” — mother. The language between divinity and individual which needed to intermediary, that is until the dark ages took over. The word mother then is a word of mathematical equation that echoes love…a perpetual primal calling from an individual to his origin…to the beginning; a bond which despite time, misunderstanding, dogmas and false programming, very much remains untouched, even when not properly understood.

Now looking at love from the philosophical way…it is the echo of the primordial love, which in our pain we seek to fulfill through another. Love is absence…. the missing of the old language which still imprinted on our cells. The missing for the original self and its direct connection to the divine within and without. As poets have said, love is absence…and in our desire to soothe an absence which seems irreplaceable, we have focused our attention of paths, beliefs, ideas, people, to help us feel less hurt, less lonely on this path.

So, is love as it was considered by the poets and philosophers a bad thing? My god, no… without this “new concept” of love, and without being able to attain the old concept of love due to our lack of consciousness and self-awareness, we would simply have a miserable existence, and would not last very long. The problem comes when we buy the delusion that the connection we seek to re-establish between the language of love and ourselves can be obtained through dogma or through others.

Due to our inability of recognizing love as a language of its own, we only have one word to describe many things….so keep that in mind when you continue reading. Love and desire are one and the same…the desire to reunite with our origin, with ourselves…and this expresses itself in our desire to “melt” with another. Are we crazy to think so? no… instinctively we understand the different energy charges between male and female energies, which is why when the “sex is great”, we see stars. Some people use that expression to describe a good orgasmic feeling, while others actually experience what it is to truly “see” stars — something scientists have studied and recorded. Those who actually “see” stars, experience a breakthrough; even if small; in consciousness, a boost to their immune system, a deep healing as a form of peace, etc. This is why ancient Tantra, or what I call Real Tantra, says Sex heals, but it can only do so when two souls connect from deep within –nothing to do with labels and everything to do with the ability to be open with another. It is then the two energies become one…and for that moment we get to experience a real “G-Spot” orgasm, which is extremely hard to experience for most people because it requires nakedness not just of body but of mind and soul. Perhaps this is why most confuse a general orgasm or good sex with great healing sexuality. A G-Spot orgasm is more than just a flesh orgasm, and as such technique alone is not enough to experience “stars”. And what are these stars? the direct firing of our heart’s neurons, ignited by the sensory channels of our bodies (sexuality).

To live separating love and desire is the biggest mistake we can make. This is why dogma imposed the idea of what it was to be a good wife or good husband, which interestingly enough contradicts our desires…. instead of balance they brought forth separation. They taught that to desire is bad; but it can only be bad when it flows against love not with it. To teach that we can experience love and desire together, and that when doing so, we get to experience wholeness, would certainly diminish the need for external mediation.

We live in a society where desire has become something associated with the perverse and love is often associated with the submissive, the false moralistic, which dogma tries to equate to innocence. But interestingly enough, children who are the perfect example of innocence have no conflict between what they love and what they desire….and that grants them the ability to experience a purity of heart without shame…. not a “purity” of ideologies, which they are not capable of understanding, much less embracing. They follow their heart, and this leads them to be opened about their love and their desires. “Be like little children” is something many sages of many backgrounds have taught, yet we are still blind. We assume this means act passively…but children are anything but passive. Children before the age of 5 don’t follow labels, don’t understand “logical” concepts, they are very much in tune with the heart language, which is a balance of love and desire — everything they do is from pure motivation — there lies key…motivation. If the motivation is pure, then the action is pure.

Love is absence…. we don’t’ “seek” for love when we have it. Desire is absence…we don’t desire something once we have it. The problem when these are separated, is that they come with an expiration date, and we go back to feeling as if we are lacking. We cannot cage love or desire, to do so, is but to kill the very things which help us survive and thrive while we are here. We cannot fall prey to puritan concepts regarding these, nor can we fall prey to false concepts of what is it is to love and to desire — the first turns love and desire into something unattainable, where we have to give up self, living in negation while mentally flagellating ourselves. The second leads to our own denigration, living based only on animal instinct. But when love and desire are united in self, with another or with others, in pure motivation, love and desire become more than just feelings we experience, they become the path towards congruency and wholeness of self.

Sofia Falcone
I passionately believe one person can make a difference. I write from my own experiences and interests. It is my greatest hope that by writing about my own challenges and hopes, others may feel inspired to believe more in their inner power and to fully embrace themselves.

Reprinted on crystalwind.ca with written permission from Sofia Falcone.

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