Book Excerpts / “The Sun My Heart”

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The Sun My Heart.

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Since we now realize that “one is all, all is one” in our bodies, let us go another step and meditate on the presence of the entire universe in ourselves. We know that if her heart stops beating, the flow of our life will stop, and so we cherish our heart very much. Yet we do not often take the time to notice there are other things outside of our bodies that are also essential for our survival. Look at the immense light we call the sun. If it stopped shining, the flow of our life will also stop, and so the sun is our second heart, our heart outside our body. This immense “heart” gives all life on earth the warmth necessary for existence. Plants live thanks to the sun. Leaves absorb the sun’s energy, along with carbon dioxide from the air, to produce food for the tree and the flower. In the oceans, phytoplankton process the sun’s energy to produce oxygen and nourishment for marine life. Thanks to plants, we and other animals can live. All of us — people, animals, and plants — “consume” the sun, directly and indirectly. We cannot begin to describe all of the effects of the sun, that great heart outside our body. In fact, our body is not limited to what lies inside the boundary of our skin. Our body is much greater, much more immense. If the layer of air around our earth disappeared even for an instant, “our” life will end. There is no phenomenon in the universe that does not intimately concern us, from a pebble resting at the bottom of the ocean, to the movement of a galaxy millions of light years away. The poet Walt Whitman said, “I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars…” These words are not philosophy. They come from the depths of his soul. He said, “I am large, I contain multitudes.”