While writing the book Cells and the Sacred, I continue to learn the crossovers between science and the sacred. There are far more links than I knew when I started this process more than a decade ago.
Our cells listen by way of their receiving sites or receptor on the surface membrane. A receptor or antenna is open to only the right fitting molecules; they can’t “hear” messages that don’t fit. There is an interplay that depends on molecular complementarity – our cells receive information, by an amazing phenonmenon of molecular embrace, provided the molecules match in just the right way. They are always listening. Here’s one molecule they get excited with – adrenaline.
This week I was reading about the Kabbalah, ancient Jewish mystical teachings and learned about the most sacred prayer – the Sh’ma. This prayer is one that probably most Jews are familiar with. I say it every night but had no idea that the word Shema means LISTEN. Jay Michalson’s fine book “God in Your Body” writes that this prayer is a demand to pay attention, listen – engage the mind body with the sacred.
Yet we don’t have to know about the Kabbalah or Jewish prayers to take the lesson of listening to our connections with each other. How fully do we listen when another person is telling us something? How open are we to hearing without judging or reacting? How well do we fit with our friends and family?
Our cells listen to every word we’re thinking and saying. They pay attention to us 100% of the time. Can we do the same thing – consider what our cells have to listen to. It’s up to us to provide them with good material. What a shame to fill them with the same old stuff. Now is the time to remember to fill our cells with loving thoughts, to listen to our friends and family, to pay attention to what we call sacred.
If not now, when?