To think of genuine friendship...

I have had great cause to think of what friendship truly is in the past weeks...to reexamine its nature and fundamental character. I was provoked to extreme depth of thought about it by a question that occurred to me after a discussion in a public forum. The discussion forced me into the recognition of some diametrically opposite views that reflected such radically different values and beliefs than mine that I was left shaken by the discovery that my "friends" could think the way they do. Perhaps I'd guessed that we were on different sides of the aisle politically but in the past, that hasn't affected the friendship that I thought existed between us. With a few people - those for whom their political views are not a major priority - I've simply agreed to disagree and we've left all discussions of that nature out of our "friendship" equation and confined our public comments towards each other to our artistic endeavors. But what does that actually mean in terms of the nature of that friendship? 

I struggle with this issue even within my family and among people I know personally rather than just on the internet. [That's not to say internet friendships can't be or are not "real." I believe they are]. But I've realized that what I'm calling friendship in most cases is no more than casual acquaintance or what Aristotle called relationships of utility or pleasure rather than the extremely rare "true friendship." I do not believe that it is possible to truly call someone a friend whose views and values are completely antithetical to my own. I'm not speaking about political views in an election year - I'm speaking about the fundamental values reflected in the memes we share or the political comments we make. I'm speaking about the basic philosophy represented by our political statements. My political leanings arise from my fundamental world view on human rights and human dignity, on justice and injustice, on communal rather than individual rights. In other words, I cannot separate my political philosophy from who I am as a person and in likewise fashion, I cannot separate another person's political statements and philosophy from who he/she is as a person. I cannot disassociate those statements from another's fundamental character. That brings me back to friendship.

Aristotle in his monumental "Nicomachean Ethics" discusses friendship at length. He "divides friendship into three sorts: friends for pleasure; friends for benefit; and true friends. To the former belong those sorts of social bonds that are established to enjoy one’s spare time, e.g. friends for sports or hobbies, friends for dining, or for partying. In the second are included all those bonds whose cultivation is primarily motivated by work-related reasons or by civic duties, such as being friend with your colleagues and neighbors." (philosophy.about.com) But true friends are virtuous friends, seeking the good of self and other and growth in virtue and such friendships assume an existing level of virtue in one's own character and in the other. Genuine friends, says the great philosopher,"serve as human mirrors in which one can better see one's own virtue...they are a single soul dwelling in two bodies." They are indispensable to self-knowledge and that is necessary for growth in virtue, the definition of the "good life." Or as Cicero put it, "A true friend is a second self." 

Why, then, would one seek a "friendship" with a person who is so completely opposite to the person one believes himself/herself to be or wishes to be? More importantly, why would a person whose values are so opposed to my own wish to be my friend in the first place? For utility? Does that person gain something by association with me? For pleasure? Do I entertain, share jokes with, or pursue similar activities? It is important that I recognize which of the three kinds of friends a person might be so I do not feel so betrayed when I see that person for who he/she really is. The sudden realization that one has been totally wrong about another person smashes that "mirror" and causes us to doubt our own virtue, asking, "how could I have mistaken that person for someone I could admire or wish to have as a friend?" How could my judgment have been so flawed?

That is not to say that one has to cut off all ties with friends of utility or friends of pleasure. It's just that one must be honest enough to identify those relationships for what they are. I can continue with those "friendships" but only to the point where to do so would compromise my self-knowledge and virtue or damage my true friendships. True friendship is the rarest of all forms of love - certainly rarer than romantic or physical love. So it stands to reason, that in one's lifetime, one might have only one or two true friends. Absence, distance, time have little effect on true friendship unless one of the friends undergoes some radical change in beliefs and values. Genuine friends continue to grow in those qualities deemed most significant and virtuous and to encourage that same growth in the other. When I look at my friend, I see the kind of person I want to be and I strive for that kind of goodness. 

Emerson said there were two elemental criteria for genuine friendship - truth and tenderness. He wrote, in his essay on friendship, said, "A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him, I may think aloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal that I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal with him with...simplicity and wholeness..." He decried the superficiality and self-promotional ego-stroking, "the chat of the markets or the reading room," that he considered "an injustice against true friendship," long before social media made such things the basis for pseudo-friendships. Truth does not mean that friends think exactly the same about everything. There is ample room for some difference of thought.  "Emerson points out that the most valuable friendships don’t spring from a filter bubble of like-mindedness but, rather, from the perfect osmosis of shared values and just enough discrepancy in tastes and sensibilities to broaden our horizons" (Popova, Maria. Truth and Tenderness: Ralph Waldo Emerson on Friendship and Its Two Essential Conditions, 8/13/14)  

These differences, therefore, enable us to reach for the next most virtuous position we might achieve, to look more deeply into a value, an event, a point of view, and so share even more closely the values of our friend. To maintain a relationship in the face of too great a difference between you, however, is not the mark of friendship. While culturally I might have to accept and respect that each person has the right to his/her own opinion, I do not need to class as true friends those persons who have no respect for truth or whose own views reflect positions that I believe philosophically are detrimental to civil and virtuous society. To do so would be to violate my own sense of integrity. We are known, as the old adage goes, by our "friends." I do not want to know myself or be known as holding views that to me seem abhorrent simply because I want to keep calling someone friend or to add another person to my list on some social media site. Nor would I want others to call me friend who find my views abhorrent or a violation of their own ethical code. Instead, I will be ever grateful for the very few rare souls I know to be genuinely friends - and those are few and rare indeed. Charles Darwin said, "A man's friendships are one of the best measures of his worth" and Thomas Fuller even more adamantly argued, "If you have one true friend, you have more than your share." I count myself rich indeed and know that in my few really close and genuine friendships I have had and have far more than my share, for that kind of friendship is more precious than jewels. I am more than content to have my worth measured by those friends. 

River Reflections

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/river-reflections-lianne-schneider.html

Repeating history...

I’ve been thinking a lot about history lately. Perhaps it’s because this past weekend, Old Fort Niagara hosted its annual War of 1812 re-enactment and I live close by. Maybe it’s because events in the Middle East and the Ukraine have resurrected thoughts about “ethnic cleansing,” and the Holocaust. Or it could just be that events at home in places like Ferguson, MO put me in mind of the paramilitary “policemen” who were responsible for the deaths/disappearances of hundreds of thousands in places like El Salvador, Argentina, or Chile in the 1970s and ‘80s. Maybe it's just that we're entering another election cycle. Whatever the cause, I find such thoughts fill me with anxiety.

As Americans, we seem to either turn a blind eye to comparisons or to willfully rewrite history in such a way as to gloss over the ugliest and blackest parts of our traditional story. Some states have gone so far as to rewrite history textbooks so there is virtually no mention of slavery, the Pinkertons and the struggle for workers’ rights or women’s rights. The Civil Rights Act gets a couple of lines, the Voting Rights act none at all in some texts (leaving the door wide open for the Court to cut the legs out from underneath it just in time for another election cycle). What is glorified in EVERY American textbook is the heroic “entrepreneur.” Robber barons are no longer the bad guys who amassed their wealth using exploitative practices and enriching themselves at the expense of underpaid workers slaving away in horrendous conditions. Now they are the models for today’s corporate giants – the Koch brothers and others like them whose philanthropy involves only the manipulation of the electoral process and contributions to political parties, or the endowment of chairs in law schools for ultra-conservative professors who craft law review articles endorsing the corporate position or the conservative position on everything from health care to gun control. Such corporations have no national loyalties, moving both jobs and earnings offshore to increase profits and decrease tax liability - taxes that pay for everything from education and defense to health care and roads and bridges.

In 2010, the far right wing of the Republican Party, supported generously by the Koch Brothers, successfully lobbied and politically engineered the death of a progressive community organization known as ACORN. From the noises made on the right, you’d have thought ACORN had billions of dollars, millions of members and an agenda designed to undercut democratic voting in America. The organization, which never consisted of more than 200,000 low to moderate income families, was a community group which worked together for social justice in 75 cities campaigning for better schools, health care and job conditions as well as actively working to get out the vote for progressive candidates. The two “filmmakers” who conducted the “sting” on ACORN were conservative activists Hannah Giles and James O’Keefe who targeted the organization purposely because of its huge voter registration efforts. Groups like ACORN can receive federal funding because of their efforts to increase voting and the highly edited films released by FOX news resulted in the loss of funding to ACORN pending investigation, its eventual bankruptcy and ultimate disbanding in 2010. Later investigations at the state and federal levels cleared ACORN of any impropriety or misuse of funds and ACORN won its lawsuit against the filmmakers for creating a misleading impression of voter fraud.  The victory came too late. Conservatives paid no attention to that fact and have used ACORN’s alleged activities and the misleading films as the excuse for limiting voting rights for minorities, requiring stringent voter ID policies, reducing voting hours and the number of booths in certain minority precincts and other means of limiting the Democratic or Independent vote. Then corporations and their superPACS won the biggest victory of all in 2010 – the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are people with an unlimited right to free speech – AND they declared that money in the form of political contributions is a form of free speech. The floodgates were opened for big money to buy our freedoms.

Most Americans think that the Tea Party movement was a grassroots uprising against more taxation, big government and threats to the Bill of Rights from liberals. It wasn’t – the talking points, the catch phrases, the sloganeering, even the baseless attacks on the President – were carefully orchestrated and fostered by ALEC (the American Legislative Exchange Council) – more about that in a minute - Americans for Prosperity (the Koch Brothers political arm and super PAC) American Crossroads (Karl Rove’s superPAC) and hundreds of corporate sponsors from AT&T, Exxon-Mobil, Koch Industries to WalMart. According to SourceWatch.org, “ALEC is a corporate bill mill. It is not just a lobby or a front group; it is much more powerful than that. Through ALEC, corporations hand state legislators their wishlists to benefit their bottom line. Corporations fund almost all of ALEC's operations.” At regular ALEC meetings, state legislative candidates, Republican governors, Republican Congressmen and Senators are given “mock” bills to introduce at both the state and federal levels. All the bills advance corporate interests at the expense of the environment, workers’ rights, decent wages, women’s rights, jobs, education and health. Often the bills are introduced exactly as written by ALEC executives. The flags are waved, the propaganda dispersed, the slogans authorized and the contribution checks written out to those campaigns most in line with ALEC’s agenda. Then the word drifts out to the “little people” – the grassroots folks – and rallies are organized to turn talking points into slogans – “they’re coming for our guns,” “Obama is a socialist” or “a fascist tyrant” or “the Bill of Rights is in jeopardy.”  Wrap all that up in a “God-fearing Christian” blanket and get it repeated by a major news outlet 100 times a day and you have a propaganda machine that is historically unparalleled with virtually limitless funding and access…until you look back at Nazi Germany in the 1930s...only in our case it is corporate interests rather than the state per se who controls the machine.   

The problem is too few Americans CAN look back at the events of the 1930s in Germany…at least not from what they learn in school. In my own experience both as a teacher and as a Mom, American history focuses on the Revolutionary War, the Civil War (to a greater or lesser degree depending on whether you live in the North or the South of the country), Reconstruction with an emphasis on the failure of former slaves to understand democracy properly, the great Industrial Age and the success of entrepreneurs like Carnegie, Rockefeller, Mellon, J.P. Morgan, Gould, Vanderbilt and yes, even then, the Koch family. With luck, students might get to the Great Depression with all the emphasis on events here at home and almost no mention of what was going on in the rest of the world. High school history usually ends with the attack on Pearl Harbor and the ultimate American victory. What was going on in Germany is not the focus of study of the 1930s. In some texts, the rise of the fascist states and the Holocaust are barely mentioned.

Surveys of adult Americans prove time and again that we do not understand the distinctions between fascism, communism and socialism and therefore people on both sides of the political aisle throw around labels without having an idea of what they are accusing the other side of being. Critical thinking is not only NOT taught in most high schools, in some states, like Texas, it’s actually banned.  The 2012 Texas Republican Party platform included the following – “Knowledge-Based Education – We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student’s fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority.” Unfortunately, as Texas goes (textbook wise at least) so goes the rest of the south who have little choice but to buy the same texts from the same publishers. That same platform endorsed the repeal of the 1965 Voting Rights Act and a ban on reauthorizing it.

Thomas Jefferson by Rembrandt Peale

At the very beginning of our American saga, Thomas Jefferson (the great hero of the right but only with regard to the 2nd Amendment), recognized how critically important it was for the American people to be well-informed and knowledgeable. Introducing a bill called, “Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge” in 1778, Jefferson said, “…experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny; and it is believed that the most effectual means of preventing this would be, to illuminate, as far as practicable, the minds of the people at large,...” Such illumination is nowhere apparent in the United States today and that, I fear, may doom us to a repeat of a history – the rise of an oligarchical dictatorship under the guise of the “people’s will” in a “democratic” election that is nothing but a farce bought and paid for by powerful corporate interests. “Those entrusted with power” are too often merely puppets dancing to the manipulations of moneyed interests and we are already seeing what kind of perversion that can create. If we love this country the way most of us claim to, it behooves us to be informed, to seek the truth, to expose the lies for what they are and to take back our country from those whose interests are antithetical to democracy. 

Old Fort Niagara

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/old-fort-niagara-lianne-schneider.html

Tell Your Truth...

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to remain silent" 

"All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of conscience to remain silent."

Edmund Burke

A Stalwart Beacon

http://www.lianneschneiderart.com/DigitalPainting/Enchanted-Seas/i-7959cMB/A

I've tried not to be too political in this blog - though as a very politically minded person, that has been very hard to do. I've tried to focus on art, poetry, philosophy, self-awareness and avoid antagonizing my readers or polarizing people any more than they already are. But we've entered into another political election cycle and I just cannot be silent. Too much is at stake. 

"Money talks" and as the Supreme Court has ruled, corporate money is a form of political speech that cannot be limited. So these days money talks loudly - louder than the little guys on the other side of the political spectrum who can't buy television time or governors or congressmen with their $100 contributions. But the Koch Brothers and others of their ilk can buy just about anything - their money has bought and paid for Tea Party candidates, the governors and legislatures of too many states, Congressmen and women of both parties who will vote for corporate tax breaks, XL pipelines, fracking, the auctioning off of public parks and recreation areas, cutting food stamps and an end to Medicare and Social Security among other things. 

Last week, John McCain and Lindsay Graham appeared on virtually every weekend talk show and, of course, were all over Fox News, expounding the ridiculous notion that President Obama should have stayed in Iraq and now should go back in with troops (not advisors) to finish what he failed to do. Hardly a single journalist called McCain on his statements - no one mentioned directly to him that it was George W. Bush who had negotiated the timeline for our withdrawal from Iraq and that the Iraqi government not so politely insisted that we go. No one reminded John McCain that he was among the first to vote for a war based on lies to begin with and he supported Bush's withdrawal timeline. 

And yet, the propaganda drumbeat gets louder and louder that it is the poor who are to blame for the nation's ills, the immigrant children, or a president who has been prevented at virtually every turn from accomplishing anything he set out to do. Daily Rupert Murdoch's "news" crew beats the anti-Obama drum - against medical care, over Benghazi, for fracking, blaming the president for wildfires, the civil war in Iraq - you name it. But there was an almost deafening silence when the House Intelligence Committee (chaired by a Republican and dominated by that party) reported no administrative wrong-doing in Benghazi. This same propaganda machine forgot to mention as they hyped the lawsuit John Boehner brought against the President that they were suing Obama for not doing what they fought 57 times to prevent him from doing - implementing every aspect of the Affordable Care Act. You heard right - they are suing him for NOT implementing a bill they tried 57 times to overturn. 

So how is it that these lies, distortions, obstructions and outright unconstitutional behaviors have become the "truth" that a majority of Americans hear on the airwaves every night whether they watch Fox News or not? I have a theory - and that is that the more wrong, the more deceptive, the more distorted the political harangue is, the louder it gets and the more often it is repeated. Lies are quickly perceived as truth if they are repeated often enough and by people who are recognizable as so-called experts in the field. Note how often a certain phrase will be repeated by every single commentator on certain networks - it's as if the editorial board hands out flash cards at the morning meeting with instructions to get that phrase into every broadcast as often as possible. Yesterday, the catch phrase was "cigar store robber" in reference to the young man shot to death in Ferguson, MO. While it may well be that Michael Brown had robbed a convenience store of some cigars a few minutes before his death, the officer who stopped him and ultimately shot him did not do so in relation to the robbery. Even the chief of police admits that - the officer stopped him for walking in the street. How often will you see that "truth" on Fox News? Whether Mr. Brown robbed the store or not, all you will see from this point on is a carefully orchestrated character assassination to justify a completely unjustified shooting. Last I heard, stealing cigars was not a death penalty offense. 

But that can't be the only reason that lies, distortions and propaganda have taken over our political dialogue or our newscasts. Actually, it's our own fault. We have become lazy and apathetic. Critical thinking is no longer required in school or in life. Opinions are treated as fact and seldom double-checked unless it's to refute an opposing view on Facebook. Most importantly, we think there is little we can do to offset the power of big money or to set the record straight about their agenda. And so we choose silence - and we rationalize that as avoiding the negatives or confrontations in our lives. I did it myself - purposely refrained from using my voice to support the truth as I find it, to oppose the lies and distortions, to fight against the many injustices and environmental disasters conservative big money is willing to perpetrate against us all for the sake of greed. 

Listen to this brilliant young teacher explain what he teaches about the value of truth in his classroom. Please be patient while this loads - I promise that it's worth the wait. 

Clint Smith - poet/teacher

04:22 minutes · Filmed Jul 2014 · Posted Aug 2014 · TED@NYC

I cannot remain silent any longer. I've noticed in the past 9 months that more and more people are becoming animal rights advocates, posting daily about the horrors perpetrated against animals and speaking out daily on their behalf. I applaud that - but...I would like to see even one quarter of that passion directed toward the political injustices both around the world and here at home that we close our eyes and ears to because it's too controversial, confrontational or adversarial...or because we just don't think we can be heard over the loud cacophony, the drumbeat of propaganda that rationalizes or justifies those actions in the name of greed and a political ideology that supports it. We can be heard - but only if every good person is willing to speak up, speak out, act in concert with others. Only if the objective is truth - not more propaganda. Only if we are willing to do the work to find the truth and not simply accept what some loudmouth tells us is true. I don't have all the answers - and my truth may not be yours in some cases. But ultimately there is such a thing as TRUTH and we can find it if we want it badly enough.  

If we truly love this nation, then we should know its history (warts and all), we should know the meaning of the words we throw around so casually as indictments of the other side, we should understand the intent and the context in which our founding documents were written. We should know who paid for the law review articles redefining the first and second amendments to reflect a particular political agenda. There are more of "us" than there are of "them" - and together we can create a cacophony of our own.  I cannot stand silently by and watch the triumph of evil because I was too cowardly or too willing to appease in order not to rock the boat or offend anyone.

FINALE - what the heart might say

“It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Shall We Gather At the River

http://www.lianneschneiderart.com/DigitalPainting/A-Simple-Life/i-rbshcM7/A

I have spent several posts discussing why we should and how to listen to our hearts and before I have to take a few weeks offline, I thought I should finish up this series with the last steps. Already, we've looked at the groundwork in quieting the mind and beginning a discipline and a practice of meditation. But it's important to look at what we can build on that foundation and how that brings us to a more wholehearted life.

According to Steve Mueller, author of Personal Development Blog Gone Wild, there are an additional eight steps to the practice of listening to one's heart. I'll try to simplify those as much as possible. After learning to meditate and focusing on one's breath, the next step says Mueller is to "go with the flow." By that he means don't try to force your heart to speak or demand that your intuition suddenly become a perfectly clear message. Expecting to "hear voices" dooms us to disappointment - just begin to tune in for the way the messages might come - as a calm certainty, or a profound insight. And when you do recognize an intuitive heart message - make a note of it. Keep a journal or diary of hunches, observations, certainties. Mueller says it's important to keep a record of every time you followed your intuition and found your life improved or felt lighter in spirit. The journal serves another purpose and that is to identify the pattern - the particular way your heart speaks to you, whether that's through hunches or a physical reaction or a sudden clarity. We begin to trust the messages, the voice of our hearts, when we keep a record of what a wonderful guide it is. As Helen Keller once said, "The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen nor touched but are felt in the heart."

Learning to trust our heart messages involves using the mind well - once we've learned how to quiet the mind temporarily in order to meditate and listen to the heart, then we can allow the mind to speak as well. Now it is influenced by the heart rather than being at odds with it. Now our intellect becomes an additional tool for clarifying the heart messages. We need to let our bodies speak as well because the body can translate the language of the heart into language that we may understand more readily. Your throat might tighten, your heart race, your stomach tie in knots when your heart is saying no, wrong choice. You might feel suddenly more energetic, more creative, more peaceful when you're hearing a "yes" intuitively. 

It takes a lot of practice - and it takes time to learn how to listen to the heart without ignoring the intellect and the messages the body sends as well. Don't be impatient and don't give up. For some of us, it's a lifetime of practice. But as Steve Mueller says, "When listening to the wisdom emanating from deep within, you will begin to experience unexpected but supportive synchronicities, things will show up when needed and lessons will be taught once you are ready to perceive their contents, always accompanied by the knowing that your heart will always take care of you.

*** I will be off for several weeks and unable to post or respond to comments. I thank you in advance for coming by, taking the time to read or comment and I'll get back to you as soon as my recovery permits. Thanks for all your lovely support these past months. Lianne xox 

D-DAY - I promised a different kind of post but...

Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen...the hopes and prayers of liberty-loving peoples everywhere march with you.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower - D-Day speech

The Great Crusade

I watched a young man on the news last night, in Normandy with his great grandfather, overlooking the wide open beach and the impossibly rugged, tall cliffs of the Normandy coast, saying honestly, “I can’t imagine putting my life on the line to cross that beach under heavy fire…I don’t think many of us can.” And yet, if we can’t imagine it, how are we to remember it and to honor the courage and the sacrifice of the thousands who gave their lives for our freedom? 

Read more...on my WordPress blog for today http://seasonssongandspirit.wordpress.com/2014/06/06/d-day-we-must-always-remember-html/

Tuesday I will finish the series on living from the heart and that will be my last post for several weeks as I will be in the hospital or away at rehab and then unable to sit at the computer for some time. I will try to get a couple of posts prepared ahead and schedule them but I don't think that's likely with all else I have to do in the next few days for work. I hope you'll come back and visit and read when I am able to return. 

QUIET the mind...open the HEART

"Meditation speaks. It speaks in silence. It reveals. It reveals to the aspirant that matter and spirit are one, quantity and quality are one, the immanent and the transcendent are one."

Sri Chinmoy

Sanctuary

http://fineartamerica.com/featured/sanctuary-lianne-schneider.html

In the last post, I spoke about the first steps towards listening to your heart and I mentioned that in this post, I'd talk a little bit about meditation and introduce you to a guided meditation to open your heart. Steve Mueller, author of the "Personal Development Blog Gone Wild" on his Planet of Success blogsite lists a number of steps for beginning the practice of meditation that I'm going to share with you here:

1. Sit down in a comfortable upright position
2. Make sure that your spine is straight
3. Focus your attention on your respiratory organs
4. Feel the natural flow of air entering and leaving your body
5. Allow your mind to calm down, while you focus on breathing
6. [Optional] Begin to vocalize the mantra of your choice
7. Watch as your mind begins to ease, enjoy the inner peace
8. Enjoy the tranquility and go with what feels natural to you
9. If a thought begins to arise, think and contemplate about it
10. If a certain scenario/day-dream begins to unfold, follow it
11. Remain in the meditative state as long as it feels right

All of those steps are important and they sound easy enough, but I suspect that for most of us it's a bit more difficult than this. I'm reminded of a scene from Eat, Pray, Love, where Julia Roberts is attempting to discipline herself to meditate. She's living in an ashram and the discipline involves getting up at 4 a.m. and spending several hours in the meditation room in the lotus position. But the harder she tries, the more impossible it is. Her mind races, fills with inconsequential thoughts and distractions and she begins to question herself. "Why can't I do this right?" "Shut up, shut up, shut up!" Now she's angry and frustrated and a long way from the inner peace meditation is supposed to bring! I can sympathize. My first attempts at even a guided meditation were dismal "failures" for the same reasons and I would say to my instructor again and again, "I can't do this right."

To prepare myself for meditation, I like to listen to the sound of trickling water - a personal tabletop waterfall is just the thing. But what helped me the most apart from having settled on a mantra with which I could be comfortable, was to really focus on step 3 above...paying attention to the breath. I mean consciously following your breath in and out with a predetermined intention to breathe IN peace and breathe OUT negative feelings, energy, thoughts. Breathe in through the nose, deeply, and in your mind's eye follow the air into your lungs and more importantly, into your heart. See your breath as if it were light - filling your body - your arms, legs, torso but centering in the heart. When you breathe back out, do so through your mouth but expel the air slowly. Do this by pursing your lips, shaping them as if you were going to whistle or blow up a balloon and feel the resistance through which the air has to pass. At the same time pull in your tummy and contract your diaphragm. Slow deep breaths keep you from hyperventilating, slow your heart rate and oxygenate and refresh the body. At first, you may find it difficult to pair this breathing practice with repeating a mantra but eventually you will find a rhythm that breathes in on the first syllable or part of the syllable and out on the second part. For example, if you are using the traditional Om mantra (pronounced approximately Oh-um but without the clear syllabification) you would breathe in deeply through your nose on "Oh," hold it for a second or two and breathe out slowly, compressing the diaphragm on "um." Likewise if you use the word "Abba" - in on "Ab" and out on "ba."

After about 10 breaths, and with twice daily or even once daily practice for a week, the breathing/mantra combination will feel very natural and in the manner of "self-hypnosis" will get you to a very relaxed and receptive state in which you can begin to open and listen to your heart - steps 7 through 11 in Mueller's list.

Below you'll find a very simple guided meditation to open the heart chakra (a chakra is an energy center in the body that we may talk about in a later post). This is only eight minutes long but it introduces you to three methods of locating and opening your heart chakra. 

From EnergyFundamentals.org

There are many wonderful sites online where you can listen to various kinds of meditation, experience guided meditations geared toward specific purposes and even download some of them for repeated use. I have dozens of these in my files as well as some meditation systems I've paid for which I personally find helpful but think they are an unnecessary expense in most cases. Online, one of my favorite sites for guided meditations is http://www.tarabrach.com/new-to-meditation.html where you will find some very helpful introductory exercises and then some really beautiful longer meditations. That's where I go when I cannot meditate without a guide - and for me, that's most of the time. 

Next post - the remaining steps to listening to the heart. Beginning next Wednesday, I will be offline and unable to post for several weeks although I am going to try to write a post or two in advance and schedule them to post when I am away. 

Begin to listen to your HEART– a how to…

“Your true heart is not subject to chaos or limited by pain, fear and neuroses, but is joyful, creative and loving…It is the core, the essence of your being, a reservoir of joy, powerful love and infinite compassion that lies within you.”

Ed and Deb Shapiro, in Listen Up! Why Being in Your Heart is Better Than In Your Head

Light in the Darkness

I have been talking a lot about listening to your heart these past few posts. But what does that actually mean and how do we do it? The ancients, philosophers and physicians alike, believed the heart to be not only how we “know” something (as the Hebrew people believed) but actually the very origin of thought, emotion, passion and reason. All those years ago, the wisest knew what we have forgotten or repressed. In our busy, logical culture, to suggest listening to one’s heart is tantamount to elevating emotion, sentimentality, impulse and passion above reason and logic. But that’s incorrect – the heart is the center of both reason and emotion,  practicality and passion. Listening to the heart certainly isn’t about being unreasonable or out of control in any way, but rather being at peace, centered, calm and connected to an inner wisdom we all possess if we will but listen.

To do that, as I mentioned the other day, one must silence the mind to some extent. Not ignore it…just get it to rest while we think with our hearts first. The mind is capable of exquisite creativity but it’s also bound to the physical aspects of life…with all its fears and uncertainties – will this work? Will I have enough? Will I succeed? But the heart cares only about our well-being (both physical and emotional), our happiness, and our spiritual growth and enlightenment. So how do we start to listen?

First, we have to consciously confront our bias in favor of the mind. Making decisions, we are almost certainly going to seek the rational and logical answer and ignore any intuition that suggests that might not be the best way to go. Intuition communicates an inner heart wisdom to us in many ways and we must recognize the signs in order to really listen. Have you ever made a logical decision about a career path, a relationship, an opportunity but had your stomach tie up in knots? Suddenly, you’re not so sure – some other center of knowing is giving us a different answer, suggesting that our decision may not ultimately be the right one. More often the heart speaks in hunches, sudden insights, or a profound certainty that is different from our analytical and linear resolution to our problem.

The first actual step toward listening and living from the heart, then, is to quiet the rational mind. How? Well, the ancients, especially in eastern thought and philosophy but also in Western religious thought, knew that one had to substitute one repetitive sound or thought for all the racing noisy thoughts that fill our heads all the time. Adopting a mantra (a Sanskrit word that means to “protect from or free from the mind.”) is a very effective way. Traditional mantras include the well known “Om” – a sacred syllable representing the source of life. Pronounced Aum with an extended resonating hum, this sound is one of the most natural to all human beings and combined with a technique of breathing in on the first part of the syllable and breathing out and holding the second part, this mantra can quickly rid the mind of extraneous thought, opening it to “hear” the messages from the heart. But you can accomplish this same purpose by repeating any single or double syllable word that you associate with something greater than the mind. Christians and Jews might use the Aramaic word “Abba” which means “father” or more intimately, “daddy.” It is considered one of the sacred names or titles of God.

Sitting comfortably with eyes closed and repeating some mantra is one of the first tools of meditation…and that’s the second step toward quieting the mind and opening the heart. I’m no expert and I’m not as consistent as I wish with meditation practice but I do have some thoughts and some guided meditations designed specifically to open the heart or “clear” the heart chakra. That’s where we’ll go next time – releasing the energy of the heart. I'll include a soundtrack for a guided meditation and some other suggestions for how to get started or improve your meditation practice. Till Tuesday then...I'll leave you with this profound truth from Franz Kafka - 

Why we should listen to our hearts...

"...the only way to know yourself, is to be yourself. And the only way to be yourself is to listen to your heart."

Mike Dooley

Entrer Dans Mon Coeur

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One of the most important aspects of wholehearted living...living from the heart...is learning to listen to what your heart is actually telling you. Certainly, we've all heard that advice before - follow your heart, your heart always tells you the truth. But how does one actually do that? And is there any reason to believe that the heart really can communicate something different than what we "think" in our heads? Yes, actually there are a number of scientific reasons to believe that "listening" to the heart is important and how to begin to do that. 

Believe it or not, there is a significant amount of research that suggests that the heart controls the mind rather than the other way around. This is tremendously difficult for many of us to accept, living as we do in a mind-dominated society where logic and analytical thinking seem to be the driving force behind our decision-making. But according to Dr. Joel Kahn, in an article entitled, "7 Scientific Reasons to Listen to Your Heart (Not Your Brain), the heart is actually the "little brain" with 40,000 neurons communicating with the brain and the whole field of research into this communication is called neurocardiology. So the heart speaks to the brain and the body in four particular ways - through the nervous system, by hormones produced in the heart itself, biomechanically through blood pressure waves and with "energy" information from the electrical and electromagnetic fields of the body. 

The findings are rather surprising - the heart communicates with the brain far more often than the other way around and the heart emits far more electrical energy than the brain as well. Probably one of the most startling facts to come out of the research is the fact that the electromagnetic field of the heart can be measured by EKG anywhere on the body but also from several feet away! 

Here's the kicker though -  "Activity in one person's heart can be measured in the brain waves of another person." The electromagnetic field of two individuals (human or pet and human), touching or within a few feet of each other, can interact so that energy activity in the heart of one individual is measured in the brain waves of the other. The act of touch for healing therapies can be postulated to be due to this method of communication." The electrical activity of the heart and the brain can be guided into a synchronous electrical rhythm easily measured and displayed by simply focusing on positive and loving emotions emanating from the heart. This state of organ “coherence” is associated with improved higher level functioning, lower blood pressure and cortisol levels, and improved immune system function." (Dr. Joel Kahn). There is apparently a lot to be said for the "laying on of hands" for healing another person and there have been some incredible proofs offered in the past few years including one shared by Dr. Gregg Braden where the healers didn't even touch the sick person - they just "sent" healing energy to the sick person and in that way completely shrunk a malignant tumor. The entire process was captured on time lapse sonograms. 

All well and good but that still sounds as if it's all about science and the mind - there must be an emotional component to the idea of listening to the heart and it's that component that is the foundation for learning to be aware of what the heart is trying to tell us. Clearly, one of the first steps in this wholehearted living process is learning to respect but at the same time quiet the mind.

More on that on Friday - and some of the rest of the steps to following your heart...

Lessons from heartbreak

"Only love can break a heart, only love can mend it again." 

Gene Pitney - lyrics to the song Only Love Can Break A Heart

Avec Tout Mon Coeur

(With all my heart)

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We've all heard the phrase broken heart, I'm sure...and most of us, at one time or another believe we've experienced one. Broken or breaking hearts are the subject of countless novels, movies and most of all, popular songs. The young lead character, Sadie, in Abby McDonald's, "Getting Over Garrett Delaney" poignantly and dramatically proclaims, “You can die of a broken heart — it's scientific fact — and my heart has been breaking since that very first day we met. I can feel it now, aching deep behind my rib cage the way it does every time we're together, beating a desperate rhythm: Love me. Love me. Love me.”  Love affairs that don't turn out well, involvement in relationships that are toxic or constantly hurtful can certainly make us feel this way. I've felt it myself several times in my life. Therapists might suggest that such heartbreak comes from an excessive neediness or a feeling of inadequacy or thinking oneself not good enough to merit being loved. Even more likely though, is heartbreak after a loss. Grief is one of the chief causes of heartache. 

But Sadie is right...there is such a thing as a broken heart. Doctors have identified a very real medical condition called "broken heart syndrome" that in most cases is serious but short-lived and from which a person can fully recover in a very short period of time. But broken heart syndrome can actually be fatal. According to the American Heart Association, "Broken heart syndrome may be misdiagnosed as a heart attack because the symptoms and test results are similar. In fact, tests show dramatic changes in rhythm and blood substances that are typical of a heart attack. But unlike a heart attack, there’s no evidence of blocked heart arteries in broken heart syndrome. In broken heart syndrome, a part of your heart temporarily enlarges and doesn’t pump well, while the rest of your heart functions normally or with even more forceful contractions."

The syndrome is more common in post-menopausal women than anyone else but it can happen to anyone. Also called stress-induced cardiomyopathy, broken heart syndrome is experienced as "sudden, intense chest pain — the reaction to a surge of stress hormones — that can be caused by an emotionally stressful event. It could be the death of a loved one or even a divorce, breakup or physical separation, betrayal or romantic rejection." It could happen after a sudden surge of intense anger too, or other losses that are closely associated with self-image like the sudden loss of one's career, the loss of a child, sometimes even the loss of a beloved pet can trigger actual heart break. And as the American Heart Association reminds us, "It could even happen after a good shock (like winning the lottery.)" The syndrome is also associated with depression and severe anxiety which can be triggers and the New York Times (February 2010) reports many other emotional but also physical triggers of broken heart syndrome. Non-emotional triggers like a sudden drop in blood pressure, a surgical procedure, an adrenalin surge due to fear or adverse drug reactions are just as common triggers. 

And yet, if you can weather the immediate storm of the initial heartbreak, which may definitely require medical treatment, or as in the case of ongoing depression or what I call "slow heartbreak," therapy or counseling, there are countless lessons and precious treasures that can come out of that experience. Friendships are deepened by shared burdens or grief and you learn who will walk with you during the darkest of times. Most of all, you learn more about who you are, what you're made of, what matters to you and you learn to acknowledge your own feelings and needs as "okay." Getting to the bottom of depression - or a broken heart - takes work and commitment but it's worth every second. Ultimately, you'll learn that heartbreak is actually part of the human experience - not just a silly drama. 

In the midst of a heartbreak of my own, I wrote this poem to express my new understanding:

 Hearts Were Meant to Break

Hearts were meant to break.

Love…requited…bursts them wide open

expanding them ever outward with the

awesome power of the big bang,

photon upon photon of love light -

an endless grace, that energy moving toward

the sacred consummation of intimate union.

And when stars cavort and gaily pour

the glittering dust of diamonds

into the space that love has opened

to receive it, a heart so fills with light

that it must split asunder to make room

for the more of love, the overflowing

river of it, the numinous, luminous constellations

of love light dancing through the cosmos.

Love…unrequited…breaks it open wider still…

transforming brokenness into beatitudes,

slivers of past sorrows that now sparkle

like shards of glass catching moonlight.

But the shattered heart remembers,

with deepening gratitude, its shattering,

having tried with such determination

to share its rounded fullness with another

and found it breaking on the hard, square edges

of someone’s heart not open yet.

There is no way to put it back together.

Now broken, it moves ever outward

like the universe,  which is itself

Love’s energy radiant with grace.

Avec Tout Mon Coeur at my website

Letting the heart rest...wholeheartedness continued

"Most of the things we need to be most fully alive, never come in busyness. They grow in rest."

Mark Buchanan, author of The Holy Wild...

View From the Hill

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With all the talk of living from the heart, we sometimes forget that occasionally we need to "rest" our hearts in order to live more wholeheartedly over the long run. Just as the body needs physical rest, so, too, the heart needs emotional and spiritual rest and renewal. Certain meditation practices can help us to do this - breathing "into" the heart, visualizing the heart as resting in a special room in our "interior mansion," using bio-feed back to slow the heart rate, listening to a guided meditation on heart awakening or opening the heart chakra. For those inclined to prayer, repetitive prayers and mantras can bring the heart ease and still the mind that keeps the heart from its rest. St. Augustine apparently knew this practice as he once said, speaking of God, "Our hearts are restless until they rest in you." 

Being a country gal, often my analogies are taken from the cycles of planting and harvesting that I witness repeating year after year and it occurred to me that our hearts are much like the fields we rely on to provide our sustenance. Hearts, too, should lie fallow occasionally. 

Fallow Heart

The heart, like an overworked farmer’s field,

sometimes must lie fallow for a while,

needing some seasons of replenishment

lest we deplete its rich topsoil of love.

Plow under the compost of last year’s crop,

let the toxin of losses leach away so that

it can do no more harm to body or soul.

The heart is not a thing to be forced

to keep producing what it does not have;

no phony artificial additives result

in a harvest rich with nutrients of giving.

No pretenses can cover the destructive truth

of the constant erosion of our spirits

caused by the greedy agribusiness of takers

who reap the heart’s profits without due care.

In the season when our heart-fields lay fallow

we learn what nourishing renewal requires -

let the birds of hope return like welcome guests

to drop the clover seeds of restful waiting,

let the boundaries of respect and self-care

contain the precious topsoil of our loving self.

Let our wildflowers of self-creative growth

attract the butterflies to play upon our petals

with nothing further asked of us than just to be.

And let the majestic oaks that line our borders

shade us from the fiery heat of thoughtless passion,

be receptors for the rainfall of personal reflection

that will renew, restore and replenish our hearts

so they might bounteously give from love again. 

© Lianne Schneider March 2010

Next post on Friday - what to learn from heartbreak...

View from the Hill

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