It seems to me that for every Contact we make, there are Signs of another Independence Day, 2012 around the corner. Why is it that our society so often tends to appeal to our deepest fears rather than our deepest hopes and inner strength? It’s not just Hollywood, either.

One of the national platform doctors I respect, Dr. Mercola, sends me his newsletter every week and there is always a list of hot topic links to draw me in to his advice and ideas about healthy alternatives. The problem is, however, that they are almost always fear based, i.e. “If you don’t stop using Splenda, you’re dead!” That’s a bit of a turn-off for me. Alternatively, Dr. Andrew Weil sends me his newsletter with lots of love and positivity, recipes for healthier meals and recommendations about how to overcome challenging habits. Which links do you think I click on more frequently? Are you different? Are the fear-based marketing strategies working on you?

Prior to Barack Obama’s election, I received a deluge of emails and appeals from conservative Americans assuring me that his election would be the end of civilization, the end of Democracy, the beginning of a new Communist, Islamic Republic of America. A couple years later, President Obama is still doing his best to make this country better than the day he arrived in the Oval Office. And we have not made it easy with our tendency towards doom and gloom.

Yet, it is so easy to appeal to fear. I believe humans have been historically susceptible to fear as a primary tactic of manipulation. Give the church the deed to your house and we’ll make sure you get to heaven. Hell, Dante’s Inferno did slightly more for church attendance than the classic film, The Exorcist. Fear has been a tool to sustain racism, ignorance, sexism, misogyny, anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, and even the mistreatment animals experience in industrial meat producing centers across America.

I suppose we each have a choice as to which voices we will listen to throughout life and the fear based bullhorns tend to seem louder, imminent, and more seductive. Like the Karate Kid, limping into the last round of the tournament, the other kid get’s the command from his sensei to “sweep the leg.” While he knows it is an immoral approach to solving the conflict, his own moral fortitude is overruled by the fear of his egotistical teacher.

As the recent events in Egypt have shown us all, it is possible to ignore the voices of doom and gloom and manifest positive change. Yet, a week later as swarms of other protests occur across the Arab world, there are still leaders who attempt to hold on to power through fear and aggression. There will always be leaders who use their villainy and force in order to cut the voice of peace and love out from under them. Let’s just hope that we all have within us at least one little trick in our toolbox that is like a talisman of light, pouring our truth into the darkness.

We are hungry, all of us.

Feed me, please. I’m in need of your… touch.

The physical experience of intention activating your body to interact with mine is something most of us never get tired of. We can feel anxious, uncomfortable, scared even- but beneath the defense mechanisms, we want it. Touch me, hold me, just graze your hand on my shoulder, but touch me.

I’m not the same without it and I’m not the same with it. Physical contact transforms me. It illuminates the dark places within my being; the shadowy, whispy caverns that get accustomed to perma-dusk. When I am open to receive the magic embedded in your touch I can feel the cells deep inside leap towards each other, dancing in the sprinkler like kids on a hot summer day. Life is beautiful when it is tactile.

I experimented with Orthodoxy once upon a time. For a year I mindfully moved through the world abstaining from physical contact with members of the opposite sex and it was profound- profoundly troubling. While it was wonderful to expand my willingness to give and receive physical contact with men, the absence of the soft, energetic graze of a woman was intensely present. The power of a good shoulder squeeze and the firmness of a huggable greeting was wonderful from the men I lived and learned with on a daily basis, but the loss of female contact while manageable, became something I decided was not something I’d ever want to live without. Never again.

She was a cute, Macrobiotic, Orthodox woman and it seemed the whole physical touch interdiction thing was getting under her skin as well. A few weeks of sharing smiles, giggles and Tamari roasted pumpkin seeds and it was on. As the sun headed down behind the olive trees, she guided me up the back stairs of an old Armenian spice shop to the roof. We stood and held each other for half an hour as the pink and gray of dusk wove a tapestry of touch into our lives once again. No kisses, No groping. No need. It was sublime and we soaked it up until we were good and done.

I never again voluntarily abstained from touch. There have of course been some “dry spells” here and there but it is something I’m acutely tuned in to as a need that can not ever be satiated. An itch that I will scratch until the cows come home.

I was speaking to someone at the airport this morning about the new, more “invasive”  TSA pat down security screenings at U.S. airports and her response struck me: “I think it is ridiculous that so many people are upset about it. It’s free touch! Who cares who’s touching me? Who can’t use a little feel on a stressful day of connecting flights?” Makes a person think twice before jumping to speed dial an attorney over the governmental grope.