: : : Your heart has ears. Also- new story for you ~

We often make the distinction in class…

.. which is a small one but has great consequence- from ‘listening to the heart’, to ‘listening with the heart.’

Well, you can only imagine my great delight when I was thumbing through my anatomy study and came across the heart ear! Referred to as the auricle in one book and literally as the ear of the heart in another. After all these years of studying anatomy, I’m not sure how I’ve missed this little tidbit, but it brings infinite joy today. There is an ear or auricle adhered to both atrium, so upper right and left quadrants of the heart. They are little muscular pouches whose purpose is to expand the capacity of the heart, therefore increasing its volume of blood. The auricle that is the outer ear of the skull acts as a sort of reverse megaphone, allowing us to hear much more. The auricle of the heart collects more blood without expanding the size of the atrium. SO, we are ALL evolving from a single prokaryotic cell to something much more intricate allowing for more and more experience…. O the design of it all gets me tipsy!

Yall know I love a good metaphor, but I feel this bridge some kind of gap between metaphor and reality. These bodies are mere echoes of all that we are capable of should we get intimate enough and listen.

So this thing of listening…. Clearly something we can all benefit from doing more of inside of our own social structures, but as always, I will advocate with starting that thing that’s needed ‘out there’,  in these here bodybones. Or at least as a supplement.

Listening is a practice. The more I have learned to listen to this vessel, the more she has shown me what is needed - to heal or just to be as vital as I possibly can be in this version of life. Not only that, it has opened me up to dimensions of perception I never knew possible. 

Listening ‘to’ still feels like a cerebral endeavor. Listening ‘with’ feels like the ultimate dive into the body. What is it that happens when we listen ‘with’ the deepest part of ourselves? What is the distinction for you? Can you feel the shift from listening to, to listening with?… as ever, all of these things are a practice. But one whose nuance I find well worth the effort/journey/inquiry. (And then, of course… the space where distinctions blur….. ).

And if I were to articulate this further for myself:

Listening to the heart- super important. Where I can know my deepest desire- beneath social programming and influence of origin stories. How I build and feel compassion. It is inside of the witnessing nature. Seeing and being seen.

Listening with the heart moves into something more unitive. It is without witness and other that I start to slip. Into speechless spaces and more profoundly whole.

But it does feel I benefit by knowing my preferences and desires first. Many of you have heard stories of the years of spiritual bypassing I engaged with unbelievable (and arguably very persuasive) out of body experiences which landed me- rather severely- inside a practice that is body bound. Endarkenment was the term I heard at the time.. whatever you want to call it, I now see how it didn’t benefit me to leave my very humanity in order to experience something ‘out there.’ It actually did benefit me psychologically speaking, because there were difficult emotions I was incapable of feeling fully. So, as ever, I am grtateful for the intelligence of the coping. No shame there. But the most incredible thing about the shift- about moving ‘into’, is that there was a wholeness there that far surpassed the ones I was finding when I negated the body, and all the years of shadow I had accumulated by not feeling certain parts. 

Becoming deeply intimate with deep experiences of body is my prayer, my practice, and my path. 

*** (Trust me, I know there are times when the trigger and/or trauma is too big and we MUST titrate/ dance around/ move away from, and that’s ok. It’s all part of the intimacy- even when we need to flee. I see you). 

Why would we do such things? Well, it cultivates a sensitivity that is not dissimilar from something in nature responding to its environment. And therefore may just be another act of environmental activism. When we are deeply attuned to something larger, and perhaps most especially the intricate nature of the planet itself, we may just know a little more about what is needed and how to truly be relational with the permanent (which ironically tells us mucho about the impermanent). And then there’s the bonus of eruptive insight, surprising synchronicity, and deep level pleasure- to name just a few. 

This is no longer a hypothetical  “what if your heart had ears,” my friends. She does! And it’s giving you the greatest capacity for life. What can you hear from something deeper than deep (that isn’t your brain) and that increases your capacity?

On the subject of listening…

It was with the intention of listening differently that I wrote these stories on Gravity & Bone. Both as a way of writing (not from the brain) and as an invitation toward different listening. There’s another story for you. I’ve been told multiple times that these pieces feel a little like looking at a painting, so I may begin to refer to them as word paintings. 

I invite you to listen from a space that isn’t consumerist and brain-driven, but what if your heart had ears?… o wait!…. we’re in luck ;) 

Happy Sunday, my friends ~ 

Please send word about how it lands. What it brings… memories, emotions, body sensations, thoughts…. I’d love to hear! 

And as ever, enjoy the experience of an intricate design.

Love Julia