Love.

Funny how such a simple word bedazzles and befuddles us all. Regardless of religious or political beliefs, our age or our gender, human or animal, love is something none of us can live without.

In our February issue, love shows its multifaceted face in three unique ways. Our cover story features singer Perla Batalla and Chef Claud Mann, a successful husband and wife team. The couple gives us a glimpse into their happy family life, and Claud provides a delicious recipe to share with a loved one. Philosopher and writer Ernie Taminga looks into a grandfather's heart and its connection to the universe, while poet and writer Tree Bernstein demonstrates the power of the poetic to move, inspire, and renew faith in our need for each other. We open our hearts, our minds and our souls to this experience, in spite of occasional heartache or disappointment, because we know, deep down in our core, that this is what it costs to be alive.

The Whole Person Calendar wishes you a happy Valentine's Day; spend it with someone you love.

Life As Art
Conversations 'Round the Table with Claud Mann and Perla Batalla

an interview by Sharon Hall

There are times in life when you meet someone and, right from the start, it feels completely comfortable.

One evening in December, my companion and I drove down the quiet streets of Ojai, looking for something to do. "Let's stop in there for a minute," he said, pointing to the lighted windows of a small cafe.* We walked into a space filled with art, warmth, and happy people.

Colorful walls were filled with black and white and color portraits of beautiful food and the art of the kitchen. We'd stumbled upon Claud Mann's, master chef of Dinner and a Movie fame, photography show. As a passionate foodie, I was pleased to learn some of the images have appeared in Edible Ojai, the magazine Claud and his wife, singer/songwriter, Perla Batalla, co-publish. As a fan of her music and her work with the legendary Leonard Cohen, I was thrilled to meet her in person. They were delightful and gracious and I wanted to know them better.

Sitting around their dining room table — what Perla refers to as "the altar" of their cozy Ojai home — Claud made me a latté and put fresh, just-baked bread on the table. I experienced the precious and rare gift of being invited into the home of a couple whose sense of warmth, fun, and enthusiasm for life is palpable. They finish each other's sentences, share a love for food, family, and music and were just the kind of folks I'd been hoping to find for our Valentine's issue. These two have their priorities in order, a rare thing in any life and especially admirable in those whose talent and drive has made them successful in the world. I wondered; how do such high powered, multifaceted and creative individuals manage to sustain a happy family and marriage with so much going on? They had obviously learned how to combine love and work; what was the secret to their balance and grace...

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After Beguiling & Befoozling Us — Meaning in Metaphor & the Language of Love

by Tree Bernstein

"How Do I Love Thee?" asked Elizabeth Barrett Browning, then answered her own question, "Let Me Count the Ways," in the title of her poem to her lover, the poet Robert Browning. That's the way poets talk when they talk of love. To simply say to the Best Beloved, "I love you," reveals a lack of imagination. On Valentine's Day, when amorous thoughts seek significance in words, a metaphor can come in real handy. Lovers turn their sunflower faces to follow the sun, reaching for meaning in the vast blue heavens. Or at least for something eloquent to write on a valentine.

Lovers must define the subtle varieties of love, enumerate its many splendors, and employ a metaphor or two in order to seal the deal on the wheel of love's fortune. Love has many names. Some call it chocolate. "If the world was crazy, you know what I'd wear? / A chocolate suit and a tie of éclair ," wrote Shel Silverstein in his poem, "If the World Was Crazy." Chocolate, bitter in its natural state comes close to being an aphrodisiac when sweetened with sugar (alchemy is a metaphor for the creative process). As proof of the power of both chocolate and metaphor, I offer as an example Beatrice Wood, an Ojai artist who lived to be 105. She attributed her long life to the love of both young men and chocolate...

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In the Eyes of a Child: Love Spreads at Ground Level

by Ernie Tamminga

My wife Alison and I are driving with our daughter and son-in-law across the bridge toward San Francisco. Ali and I are in the back seat, with our three-month-old granddaughter, Zoe. She's in a proper car seat, facing backward, and therefore face-to-face with us. I notice that she's looking at me, so I look back. We lock eyes, and hold each other's gaze steadily for several minutes. Occasionally, Zoe lights up in a smile that starts with her mouth, expands to her whole face, and continues expanding to involve her entire body – arms rising, back arching, legs extending. Then she relaxes again, all without ever breaking our mutual gaze.

I'm entranced. I would be, of course, as a Grandpa. But there's something here that's beyond the grandfather-granddaughter relationship. I am struck by the grace, wonder, and mystery of contact and communion. I am beholding and being beheld by another person, and because she is a baby, the beholding is innocent, unguarded, and complete. At least there is complete innocence on her side; I, a grown-up, have long since lost my primal innocence and I carry many layers of life baggage. But because her innocence is so complete, my baggage, my agendas, are irrelevant in this moment, and in this moment they are suspended and I am free.

This is the innocence of pure attention, and it makes it possible to be, genuinely, in each other's presence. At this level, the Golden Rule is not even necessary, for there is not even the remotest thought of doing harm, of exploiting or taking advantage...

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