Core Heart Feelings
by Pam Montgomery
There are many "core heart feelings," but the simplest
and easiest to access is one of gratitude or appreciation. Showing appreciation
elicits an immediate response in your body that lessens the stress response,
causes entrainment with the brain, and affects the electromagnetic field around
you with ordered coherence. It is easy to come into coherence while in a state
of gratitude, because your heart responds immediately to any appreciation you
can elicit even if it is not about the situation at hand. This causes your
nervous system to naturally come into balance, lessens the burden of stress,
and frees up energy to be available for creative outlet. Gratitude is a highly
magnetic state and when one is in the state of gratitude, it is returned to you
easily.
Many religions suggest that prayers are to be ones of gratitude instead
of asking for this or that, and that by merely being sincerely grateful,
blessings will come to you tenfold. Each morning as I begin my day I step
outside and give thanks to the sun for its warm breath, give thanks to the
earth for its sustenance, give thanks to the trees for the oxygen they provide,
and give thanks to the pure water at Heart Spring that is the life blood of
this land and provides the moisture needed to maintain my body. In each of
these I recognize the face of the Holy -- the spirit that vitalizes and gives me
my very life -- and I am grateful. To start the day in such a fashion sets the
tone and allows appreciation to open the doors of the heart, letting the
abundance of gratitude fill the vessel within you, easing challenges and
freeing your energy to co-creatively engage fully with life.
Another positive impulse for the heart is that of innocent
perception. This is the state of nonjudgment in which your view is like looking
through the eyes of a child. With this perspective you see the world anew with
freshness and are able to be present. Judgment is a part of our make-up,
because in our evolutionary development humans have needed to make quick
judgments, for example, to know how fast and far we needed to run to avoid the
saber-toothed tiger. Judgment is a part of our fight or flight mechanism and
helps keep us safe.
However, the dangers that we now face are different from
those ten thousand years ago. Constant judgment that creates a stress response
is more harmful than helpful. Now it is more appropriate to let our hearts be
discerning, allowing ourselves to make decisions that are more holistic, with
less personal attachment, and to embrace other's opinions. It is then that we
experience gentleness with ourselves as well as others. When I look at Dandelion
and say that I know all there is to know about it, I'm not viewing it with
innocent perception. Instead I am closing the door to any other possible
experience or understanding about its character or healing qualities. My
relationship does not continue to grow and the subtle nuances of Dandelion's
gifts pass me by. When we sit in judgment we limit our experiences of life as
well as our choices.
Forgiveness is a quality that is harder to achieve than the
previous two impulses but one that when accomplished is most rewarding. The
difficulty lies in our responses to greed, betrayal, loss, shame, and
dishonesty -- actions that have hurt us to the point of locking down our hearts so
as to never be hurt again. This vise on our heart causes it to atrophy, harden,
and ooze power as if from a festering wound. It is also in this arena that we
come up against some of our hardest challenges, ones that hold us in bondage
and suck our life force.
Forgiveness must
begin with oneself before it can move on to others. If we can't forgive
ourselves, our parents, our spouses, our neighbors, and our government then it
is unlikely we could ever forgive the desperate act of a terrorist. And yet, it
is this very forgiving that puts healing into motion by removing the shackles from
the heart, allowing it to invigorate with coherence leading to compassion. If
you continue hard-heartedness you are hurt not just once but repeatedly by the
energy you expend holding on to your grudge. But forgiving, as Howard Martin so
eloquently states, "releases you from the punishment of a self-made prison in
which you are both the inmate and the jailer."
During a Plant Spirit Healing
class one homework assignment was to give positive impulses to the heart. Anne
shared, "What I experienced when I practiced positive impulses to the heart
those first days, was an incredible opening . . . [a] softening of my heart
toward my stepdaughter. For several months I had been burdened with negative,
judgmental, fearful thoughts and emotions around our relationship.
"With several days of practice, those thoughts and
emotions ‘magically' disappeared. Somehow I had let go of the heaviness of it
all. I wasn't afraid to visit her, and when I did the ‘wall' between us was no
longer there, and I was much more
comfortable being with her; my negative thoughts dissipated; I was more understanding and
compassionate toward her; I had become unstuck and freed, after such a long
time being captive to the negativity. I could move forward in such a positive,
open-hearted way. And so it remains a relationship of ease to this day. I
wouldn't say enjoyment yet, but no more struggle, certainly. Amazing!"
These positive impulses or core heart feelings are what lead to
coherence in your heart rate variability, which leads to entrainment, allowing
the brain to serve your heart to its fullest capacity and creating balance
within and without. It is also what leads you to the Holy Heart, which is the
infinity point in your heart that connects you to your soul, thus accessing
spirit. This infinity point is mentioned in a verse of the Chandogya Upanishad,
"As vast as this space without is the tiny space within your heart: heaven and
earth are found in it, fire and air, sun and moon, lightning and the
constellations, whatever belongs to you here below and all that doesn't, all
this is gathered in that tiny space within your heart."
In Christian doctrine
the Holy Heart is the seat of your covenant with God as accessed through Jesus.
A more secular view is that the Holy Heart is of the Earth and is the Mother of
all or is the equal partner, the queen. Dr Phillip Bhark suggests that the apex
of the heart could be the actual physical location of the infinity point, since
it is here that evidence of stress first appears.
To me the Holy Heart is the
place within that connects to without; it is greater than the sum of the parts,
and yet, within each part, its wholeness is held. It is the sacred space from
which I derive meaning from life and, through my service to the Holy Heart, I
am connected to all life.
Stephen Buhner refers to the spiritual heart as the
space where, "We feel the touch of the world upon us, and those millions of
unique touches hold within them specific meanings, sent to us from the heart of
the world and from the heart of the living beings with which we inhabit this
world. This interchange changes the quality of our lives and reminds us that we
are never alone." As poet Marta Belen says, "Through the door of an open heart
the universe is known" and it is here with the heart that the triple spiral
path of Plant Spirit Healing begins.
This article was excerpted from:
 Plant Spirit Healing: A Guide to Working with Plant Consciousness
by Pam Montgomery.
Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Bear & Company, an imprint of Inner Traditions International. ©2008. www.innertraditions.com
For More Info or to Order This Book.
About the Author
Pam Montgomery has been investigating plants and their intelligent
spiritual nature since 1986. She is a founding member of the Northeast
Herbal Association and is on the Advisory Board of United Plant Savers.
The author of Partner Earth: A Spiritual Ecology and contributing author in Planting the Future,
she is a practicing herbalist and plant spirit healer who offers
trainings and treatments from her home in Danby, Vermont. Visit her
website at www.partnereartheducationcenter.com.
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