To begin with, everything moved along swimmingly.

 

Your mother’s love. Warm, soothing, peaceful, gentle, serene, quiet.

 

Infinite.

 

All embracing.

 

All encompassing.

 

In her arms total bliss. Remember how you would gaze into those big beautiful eyes of her, and tell me, what could be more enchanting, more mesmerising, more reassuring than their message which you so delicately and delightfully and unashamedly absorbed all those years ago.

 

All those aeons ago.

 

All those epochs ago.

 

No questions! No doubts! Not a care in the world!

 

And why should you? You had her, she had you.

 

What could be more perfect?

 

This is the epitome of love in all its profound and mysterious glory. And even though you are just a baby, is this really the first and one and only time you ever felt it, ever knew it when, until moments ago you really and literally were one with the universe?

 

Is this all-consuming experience of total love a one and only happenstance, never to be repeated one-off? Why is perfection so fleeting, so transitory?

 

So easily forgotten!

 

But who amongst us can remember even our first few months of life, let alone those first few precious unique moments of discovery and revelation when we knew and revelled in the infinite power of total love?

 

Very few of us actually. The hippocampus – that part of the brain which together with the thalamus, hypothalamus and amygdale make up the limbic system, the feeling part of the brain – the hippocampus, while it is charged with faithfully recording memories of events in context, it is not fully functional until about 3 years of age. No wonder most of us have trouble recalling earlier events.

 

You look into your mother’s eyes. And for some peculiar reason, no other pair of eyes has quite the same impact, as if there is an unspoken pair of eyes that only the two of you possess access to, for of all the hundreds of pairs of eyes that might gaze into yours in these crucial of crucial times, no others will hold their gaze or majestic and mystical appeal quite like hers.

 

And you are now concentrating on her left eye, on her pupil and beyond into the seemingly impenetrable blackness of her inner eye, for you are soon to be beholden unto a secret that lies on its other side and which is surely just the twinkling of an eyelid away.

 

In your mind, you draw an imaginary line between your mind and her mind. And ever so slowly, your mind moves along the line until it touches the surface of her retina.

 

You discover that you are searching for something, a door perhaps; a door that lies somewhere in what is now the vast expanse of her iris and which, for this moment in time is your universe and what your mind has come to rest on. You are looking for a door, an imaginary door but a door nevertheless, and one which you might one day feel driven to return to and open.

 

But not now.

 

For now, you have a lifetime to live.

 

The door to your mother’s mind and everlasting life, but only if you have the courage to open it. This thought is now firmly fixed in your mind. You didn’t know it at the time, but when you gazed into your mother’s eyes when you were a baby, this is what you were searching for.

 

The awe and mystery that is existence.

 

We discover to our great consternation that love is multi-faceted, multi-dimensional. It is not quite so infinite and all-embracing as we first thought.

 

Love is multi-layered.

 

A hundred years ago, or was it just a moment ago, physics discovered that existence is two-pronged. Existence quite literally has an imaginary component that is conceptualised by the value √(-1) and which is embedded in the mathematics of the famous Shrodinger wave equation, the interpretation of which forms the basis of quantum mechanics.

 

Thus we have a real matter Universe and an imaginary Universe, but one that while ephemeral, is just as real.

 

Currently, existence operates at approximately 10-34 cm. This is the length of the smallest known fundamental particles called gravitons – hypothetical conveyors of the gravitational force, or perhaps superstrings? By comparison, the hydrogen atom is a colossus. At these tiniest of tiny levels, it is debatable whether or not human definitions of space and time actually have any meaning.

 

Quantum mechanics argues that the act of observation causes a wave-like possibility to transform into a particle-like actuality. Heisenberg’s Uncertainty principle ensures a degree of flexibility (freedom) of the outcome.

 

Thus, built into the fabric of the universe are the combined characteristics of possibility and actuality.

 

To discover truth we have to go back in time and return to the moment when we were first able to focus on our mother’s eyes, and then we must ponder why we spent so much time gazing into them.

 

Who wants to know?

 

Why, lovers of course! And poets, musicians, philosophers, clowns, tea ladies.

 

Until we can let go of the past, we cannot take hold of the future.

 

What are we searching for?

 

Ways to make the world a better place.

 

What’s the catalyst that transforms possibility into desirable actuality?

 

Love holds the answer.