Today concludes this 6-part series on (Sacred) Conversation with your Heart. I am hopeful, though, that it is just the beginning of so much more of the same!!!
If you’re just tuning in today, I’d encourage you to read the first 5 posts: Introductions, Tentative Listening, Hearing Deeper Truths, Speaking Deeper Truths, and Loving the Dialogue.
And now, today, the big finish:
PART SIX – HEART CONVERSATION AS SACRED CONVERSATION
For me, this intimate and honest dialogue with my heart is synonymous with the Sacred. There is nothing disparate between the two. They are one-in-the-same. That know-that-I know-that-I-know voice within is the voice of the Divine.
I’m hearing the Divine speak to me. Not in a burning-bush sort-of way, or miraculous thunder-clap or shout from on high. Rather, a constant, generous, and trustworthy source of wisdom, love, and life. And this knowing, this awareness, this experience IS what enables me to speak (and live) out loud.
Sadly, our religious traditions have been filled with both language and praxis that too-often have kept us silent. We can go back to the earliest tellings of the earliest stories and see how this silencing has been perpetuated, how it has become part-and-parcel with our deepest and most intrinsic belief about ourselves – particularly as women. Beginning with Eve, we’ve been told that her curiosity, her voice, her conversation with and trusting of her own heart is what led to the downfall of all creation. I COMPLETELY disagree. (Watch my TEDx Talk to hear more of my VERY strong opinions about this.)
Keeping our hearts (and very selves) silent is painful. It twists us into ways of being that are unnatural, unhealthy, and ultimately, not even remotely reflective of the Divine that dwells within.
When we raise our voices, speak our hearts, and shout our truths, the S/sacred is seen and experienced.
This matters! Your voice matters. Your truth matters. Your conversations with your heart matter! Potentially more than anything else. For this IS the sacred – made manifest in and through you. Beautiful. Powerful. True. Yes.
And so it is.
REFLECT
Jan Richardson, one of my all time favorite writers has a poem called Having Taken the Fruit. Here are the last two verses:
It took a long time to gure out / that my stiing silence / was not a path / back to a paradise / where I could never live.
I finally learned to listen / to the hissing in my breath / that told me the roots / of my own soul / held the healing that I sought / and that each stilted syllable / I let loose / was another leaf / on the tree of life.
- Have you ever considered your inner dialogue, your conversation with your heart, as conversation with the Divine? As Sacred conversation? What does that prompt for you?
- Where have you known aspects of silence/being silenced in the context of religion or faith? How has your heart shut down when that’s occurred?
- What if the loosening of your tongue, of your throat, of your voice is the redemption of Eve’s story in the here-and-now? Can you see how it IS the redemption of YOUR story here and now?
- The voice of your heart is the Sacred in and of itself. Will you believe this? What might change if you did, if you could?
I am hopeful these six posts have been helpful, encouraging, and have offered specic ways in which you can step even more deeply into conversation with your heart. Did I mention that it really matters?
Know that the process and practice of having heart-conversations is ongoing. It takes time to learn to listen and then respond to that steady beating, those internal messages that will guide you into places of strength, courage, passion, and life. And, as you might have guessed, I am beyond-passionate about such; about heart-conversations: yours, my own, and ours together.
I promise: your heart will not lead you astray. Listening and responding to it is the safest, surest, sanest thing you can do. It can be trusted. As can you. It is good, beautiful, and strong. As are you.