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I first learned about the heart from a Western point of view. I was amazed by it then with all the functions that it performs. Beating away, keeping us alive, the heart functions has a pump, releases hormones, and is composed of neural tissues which make up it's own pacemaker. Now I have come to the see the heart in a different and even more amazing light. The heart is not just a muscle sustaining life, but it is also responsible for feelings, emotions, consciousness, perception, cognition, and the innate closeness that we feel towards other living things. Of course this is what is advertised, that love comes from the heart. But what does that really mean? and is there actually a science behind it? Turns out that, yes, there is. The article that we had to read in class was very interesting just in the research alone. I wish that there was a title on it, but it was by Stephen Harrod Buhner in Spirituality & Health, March/April 2006. The article illustrates these amazing aspects of the heart that have long been underestimated of disregarded in Western Medicine and mindset. The concept that really struck a cord with me was where in the body we live determines how we perceive and interact with the living world around us. Buhner explains that when asked where in the body they live indigenous people who still have a closeness with the earth gestured toward their hearts, while Western people usually gestured toward their brain. To live from the heart is to feel from the heart and learn and know after. I really like this way of thinking, it just seems to make so much more sense! The heart truly is an organ of sense, with the power to entrain ones entire body and interact with others heart centers. This is why two people can exchange information and communicate with out every saying a word, they do so through their heart fields. The more we learn to feel from the heart, the way our body was meant to feel, the more connected to the rest of the living world around us we will be. Living in our heads just gets us farther from intuitions and innate abilities to communicate instinctualy. Unfortunately, Western society has put so much emphasis on living in the head/brain that there seems to have developed a social phenomenon that I am going to call the mind-body-heart disconnect. Western society seems to view each of these as an independent entity and therefor misses the concept of the whole system. "The whole is far more than the sum of the parts", and that is just putting it lightly!
I am going to have to cut this blog short since I am running out of time, but I plan to post more since I am not done evaluating and reviewing the article.
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3 comments:
I like your final comment "The whole is far more than the sum of the parts", it makes me think of everything else we've been learning in class, how all the systems and parts of the body affect each other, depend on each other, and are in harmony. In western medicine doctors are always just treating one thing without taking into consideration the rest of the body, and other less threatening symptoms that may be important to a diagnosis. At least that's one of my opinions of western doctors.
One Of your setences that really struck a chord with me is the part where you said "to live from the heart is to feel from the heart and learn and know after" I really felt a deep underlying meaning in that comment.So many people go through life living in this safe non reality no feeling zone. We forget to feel and trust that everything we are feeling in our heart has a purpose and important lesson behind it. So many people live in their heads because we are taut to do that. By living in our heads we are missing out on the different perspectives our heart portrays to us. I think everyone of us could use lessons on how to begin listening with your heart instead of your brain.
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