LISTEN TO YOUR HEART

WHEN TWO HEARTS BEAT AS ONE

In the last ten years neurology and cardiology have made astounding discoveries about the brain and heart that have turned the whole scientific world upside down and trying to digest the conclusions. The major religions have assumed these facts for years, to the derision of the scientific community. Quite by accident, they have been right all along. Not a wild conclusion, but proven beyond a doubt, neurologists have proven that the brain processes incoming information from the heart and sends instructions to the necessary body parts to provide function. This has been observed in the animal world for years. The heart beats and sends magnetic waves that are absorbed and interpreted by nearby creatures who then act in ways that are cooperative and beneficial. Observe swarming techniques of schools of fish, insects, dolphins and starlings. Such precise actions in unison would be impossible without some advanced kind of communication.

Yes indeed, my friends, within the heart is the soul of a person. The wave patterns of the heart beat can be heard and seen in which the exact nature of the magnetic waves generated can be interpreted and associated with various emotions. Fear, anger, compassion all have different wave shapes that direct the brain and also transmit for a distance outside the body. Imagine . . . love forms a wave that is quantifiable and is transmitted. It is something physical, a lump in the throat, butterfly feelings in the gastric region, hot flashes, increased rapidity of the heart-beat and many others. Charles Darwin in the “Descent of Man” mentions the phrase “survival of the fittest” twice! He mentions the word “love” over one-hundred times! Perhaps love, compassion and cooperation have had more to do with evolution than we think.

Astoundingly, these magnetic waves can be transmitted distances and anybody within it's influence will absorb these waves. Science has proven in the last ten years that the individual absorbing these waves will tend to sync with them and shortly will match the wave shapes that they are receiving. Yes, love can be felt without words and have its effect. This is true of all the other waves one might experience, mass hysteria, riots, violence and war. “Make Love not War” an echo of my distant past just may have a Darwinian basis for the survival of the human species.

Before I knew anything of such a phenomenon I wrote a story about “two hearts beating as one” to describe the heady feeling of newlyweds having just such an experience as they start their new life in sync in more ways than they ever knew.

The Love Nest

The wedding still a month away, we were excited to see the place where our new lives would begin. Despite the deposit rendered and keys in hand, this was merely a visit, just a glimpse into the future.

We opened the door and were taken aback by the space’s vacant vastness. The bright sunlight washed through the uncovered windows enhancing the sense of emptiness. The glare made us squint. The acrid smells of freshly painted walls and varnished wood floors made our eyes water, but in our heightened state of mind it seemed more like the scent of lavender or lilac.

Hand in hand we imagined all the ways we were going to make this generic space our own. Words were not necessary because we were one. Endless love was ours and no one else could possibly understand.

We sat on the bare floor and reclined against the wall, resting our heads on each other’s shoulder, the image of youth and beauty glowing from a shared romantic notion. It was optimism born of innocence. The mid-summer sun poured through the windows illuminating our faces with an angelic radiance. We melted into one another, drifting hazily into a state of contentment. Hours passed without uttering a word; our hearts beating in unison a happy rhythm, pattering the same happy thoughts of a better world we’d make our own. Eventually dozing off to a shared reverie, we were undisturbed until dusk’s shadows crept along the wall to cloak us in darkness.

The evening chill made us shudder, awakening to a sense of how small we were in our room turned dark and alien. We ran from this darkened place, a shadowy reminder of the true nature of the world. We wondered if our life would be lived in the light or the dark.

This, the distant past, we are now in retreat in our home. The lights have been darkened downstairs and we feel safe together upstairs in my office, me staring at my PC, she absorbed in a book. Pitch black outside, like being adrift in a bottle of ink. A serene evening but for the crickets, a few sleepless birds twittering nervously near our windows and the occasional sounds of raucous motor bikes sprinting down the street, claiming their ownership of the night.

I glare at my screen searching for the last few words to this story and my wife nearby watches my struggle from the corner of her eye. I am pulling feelings from a deep well that frustratingly change when removed from the depths of its past. Emotions laid aground in the light, seem dry and gray, it is sad to think of them as lost. I console myself knowing that our hearts still beat as one, understanding one another without words and having a need to be close.

Whatever is left is more than enough, but when I look back at the lifeless relics pulled from the well . . . My wife sees the salty drops splashing my keyboard, but doesn't ask why . . . because she knows.