Posts tagged with "heart"
Beyond Dualism
Today, thinking about what we have shared together over the last two days and how we have shared it, I offered this text to our new students. It is from an essay by Jeanette Armstrong called ‘Keepers of the Earth‘.[1] She is a Native American from the Okanagan peoples and writes the essay from this perspective.
‘The emotional self is differentiated from the body-self, the thinking, intellectual self, and the spiritual self. In our language, the emotional self is thought of as the part with which we link to other parts of our larger selves around us. We use a term that translates as “heart”. It is a capacity to bond and firm attachment with particular parts and aspects of our surroundings. We say that we as people stay connected to each other, our land, and all things by our hearts.
As Okanagans we teach that this is an essential element of being whole, human and Okanagan. We never ask a person “What do you think? Instead we ask, “What is your heart on this matter?” ‘
I make a wish for their future:
“I hope your heart goes first.”
I make a wish for myself in Knoydart:
“I hope my heart goes first.”[2]
[1] Roszak, Theodore, Mary E. Gomes, and Allen D. Kanner, (ed.), Ecopsychology, Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1995
[2] With acknowledgement to Junction 25 for one of the best performance titles I know.
