The Flavors and Intelligence of Love

Love is the intelligence that calls us to do what brings wellness and flourishing to all. The more we honor and heed all of its aspects, the better and brighter things get!

Lisa invited me to Zumba with her on Valentine’s Day, and I have to say: It is a-MAZ-ing! There’s something about smiling with your hips that feels fabulous. Honoring and following the sensual energy in my body is glorious. The collective vibe in the room cultivates a sparkling sweetness that fills my entire being. As I relax my mind and move my body, I simply feel more radiantly alive!

I’m reenacting the moment :)

Now, let’s “bookmark” that image for a moment, and rewind to something I’ve been contemplating for a while: The flavors of love—with an eye to better understanding and embracing one of its elements we’ve done a disservice to.

You know how in the English language; we use the word “love” in a wide variety of ways? We love everything from pizza, to the Seattle Seahawks, to our partner, to sleeping in, to Sicily, to our best friend, to our favorite pair of jeans, to yoga, to Jesus, and so on. While your specifics likely differ from mine, I bet you know what I mean: Love—with its ability to mean anything from a passing preference, to something you’d die for—is like an elastic superhero who can stretch and bend in jaw dropping ways.

On a practical level, this sometimes means “love” has become such a bendy word and idea, it can get so contorted and twisted out of shape, that we forget the fullness and power of its meaning.

Back in the day, C.S. Lewis gave us some help in this regard. He noted how in antiquity, ancient Greek had four different words, with differing meanings, for love. Interestingly enough, for a good stretch of time, ancient Greek was like modern English—it was the language most commonly used across different cultures and nations. The ancient Greek’s four ways of characterizing love were: Storge for affection, Philia for friendship, Eros for sensual love, and Agape for selfless and universal love. Examples of how to think of these include: the bond between mother and child, the connection between likeminded people, the passion between lovers, and the unbreakable thread of unconditional love.

Now, can you see how these different flavors of love intertwine with one another? How, while it’s helpful to look at them separately, they can’t really be broken apart? What I mean is that a parent doesn’t only Storge their child, they also Philia and Agape them. Likewise, good friends also hold great affection and a level of selflessness for one another. Do you notice what flavor is missing though? Eros.

Knowing love to be wholly good, beautiful, and true—meaning all of it belongs everywhere—it bugged and nagged at me that our culture has effectively carved sensual love out of the greater whole, setting it aside only for lovers.What is more, while I do believe there is something essentially divine about the way Agape radically embraces anyone and everyone (even enemies); I disagree with how the “world” I live in diminishes and subordinates Eros to Storge and Philia. The more I mulled this paradigm over, the more I’ve come to see how we suffer because of it.

Which, brings me back to Zumba. Almost. ;) For a decade, or more, I was addicted to porn. A major reason for this was because—like many of us—I was taught the erotic aspect of love is simultaneously a bit naughty, and is only to be released with your partner. I use the term “released”, because:

Love is an energy that is constantly filling and moving through us. Love is our nature. It is who we are, what we’re about, and why we’re here. And what moved and grooved me so beautifully in Zumba, was the erotic flavor of love. 

When we ignore, repress, shame, or misidentify one of love’s energies, we suffer—individually and collectively. The mishandling of Eros leads to porn addictions, other addictions, affairs, resentment, self-loathing, body-shaming, and more. I think here of how I am a happily married man; who also is attracted to other women—some who I am, or have been, quite close to. This energy inside of me gets way less complicated when I realize:

Eros is to romance and sex, what a rectangle is to a square. It transcends and includes it. Akin to how a square is a rectangle, but a rectangle isn’t always a square*; romance and sex are Eros, but Eros is WAY more than romance and sex.

Zumba feels so fabulous, because it is a fun, healthy, and communal expression of our erotic energies. Which, leads me to “intelligence”. During the third class I attended, as I let the center of my hips move me, as I let Eros guide me, it came to me: Love is a form of intelligence. Perhaps, even the pinnacle of it.

As I sat with this notion—alongside Lewis’ four loves—I realized: The intelligence of love expresses itself in four different places and manners, via one’s head, heart, hips, and spirit. Which looks something like this:

1. Head: There is a logic to love. An ability to step-back, consider things from a big picture perspective, and rationally know what the true, good, and beautiful thing to do is.

2. Heart: Love is also deeply intimate. There is a warmth and a light to love. It is a physical, emotional, verbal, mental, and/or spiritual “hug” between people. It’s a compassion, forgiveness, and kindness that needs no logic.

3. Hips: Sensuality and passion are key components to love. This is that potent energy yogis call kundalini, that “zest” that wells up in us from the base of our spines. It’s what moves us when we dance, and the magnetic pull you sometimes feel with another person.

4. Spirit: Love is the most powerful force in the world. This is the flavor of it that is unconditional, unlimited, and all-encompassing. It embraces not only people we “love”, but those we don’t know, people we don’t like, and even ones we consider enemies. It is the energy that empowers us to joyfully give our life for another/others.

All of these intelligences and flavors of love, form the cocktail that makes you and life incredible! So, with that in mind:

May the intelligence of love guide us. May the flavors of love nourish us. And may the rainbow energies of love always flow from, into, and through us.

Hugs & Love,

Lang (aka “Dr. Love”)

*While a square has four equal sides, a rectangle just has four sides with straight lines.