The Bleeding Heart

The Bleeding Heart

Mary Oliver

I know a bleeding-heart plant that has thrived for sixty years if not more, and has never missed a spring without rising and spreading itself into a glossy bush, with many small red hearts dangling. Don't you think that deserves a little thought? The woman who planted it has been gone for a long time, and everyone who saw it in that time has also died or moved away and so, like so many stories, this one can't get finished properly. Most things that are important, have you noticed, lack a certain neatness. More delicious, anyway, is to remember my grandmother's pleasure when the dissolve of winter was over and the green knobs appeared and began to rise, and to create their many hearts. One would say she was a simple woman, made happy by simple things. I think this was true. And more than once, in my long life, I have wished to be her.

Once upon a time there were a humanoid people whose heart's cycled with the seasons. In the winter, their hearts shrunk to the size of a raison. The cold snows echoed their cool souls and empty faces. Come the spring their hearts began to grow and by summer would be so big that you could see them beating through their skin, emitting a pink glow around their chests. All summer long they would forget their work and their worries, and spend their days laughing in the rivers and ponds, embraced by life, love, and one another. Their favorite past time was to press their chests against one another and see how long their hearts could beat in perfect synchronization. Come fall they held on to each other's hands as if it was the last time ever. And of course it would be, at least until the following spring. Why do I wish I were they?

This longing, wishing to live with an open heart with others, no matter how much it bleeds, is the art of compassionate communication consciousness. For out of the longing, and the mourning for those long dark times of perceived separation, comes the blooming of new life.

How does your heart wax and wane?

Opening the Window of the Heart

Friend, there's a window that opens from heart to heart

And there are ways of closing it - Rumi

Often when offering support for others in Compassionate Communication I find that people, including myself, can get caught up in the tools for practicing peace in communication, such as the four components of observation, feelings, needs, and requests. I am learning though that the premise of rewiring our brains and changing our habits lies with this choice: Do I want to live constricted, or with an open heart? When I get up in the morning and open the windows and doors to the misty early sunlight, do I want to love myself and the world I see, or do I want to begin withdrawing into myself by judging any moving being as the source of my discomfort or lack of fulfillment? This question always draws me back to the hope of this moment and the feeling of my body. There is a difference in my body posture when I think "I wish for more world peace," and "I love peace." This is similar to the difference when I say "I wish this person would be more loving" and "I long for love." In the later, my body opens, leans towards the "other," and a window opens in my heart.

Where do you shut the window of your heart?

Spring Into Love

Spring

Mary Oliver

Somewhere

a black bear

has just risen from sleep

and is staring

down the mountain.

All night

in the brisk and shallow restlessness

of early spring

I think of her..

There is only one question:

how to love this world.

I think of her

rising

like a black and leafy ledge

to sharpen her claws against

the silence

of the trees

Whatever else

my life is

with its poems

and its music

and its glass cities,

It is also this dazzling darkness

coming

down the mountain,

breathing and tasting;

all day I think of her-

her white teeth,

her wordlessness,

her perfect love.

Mary, my favorite poet, has finally you've nailed it down to one question, although just a few poems ago, her question was, what is a soul? Perhaps this comes out of the question, "how to love the world." The question is not how to be loved? Why me? Why not me? Or how shall I die and when? How shall I best meet my needs? In the asking, I feel empowerment. In the asking, we give ourselves a choice. Now, this moment, we choose how to love. Shall it be wordlessly like the bear? Watching like in so many of Mary's poems? Reading this poem? In Compassionate Communication we may ask this same question in this way, "how shall I connect to the world and consider all being needs?" Or, how shall I keep my heart open, even in the direst of circumstances when my needs are not met?

How do you love the world?

Beyond Words - March 28, 2010

Below is a story from Zen buddhism that I adapted to speak to nonviolent communication.

One day a student asks the Nonviolent Communication Certified Trainer “Why are you hiding the final secret of NVC from me?” The master says that he has kept nothing hidden but the student continues to demand to know how to live the NVC way. One day they are walking and a bird sings. The master asks, “Did you hear the bird sing?” “Yes,” said the student. “Then you know I have hidden nothing from you.” “Yes,” said the student, and he was enlightened.

In this story though the student had worked with NVC for years, the artistry of living from the heart had not been achieved. The student was still trying to follow a formula, a description based on words, when actually NVC/Compassionate Consciousness is “beyond words” just as it is “beyond wrongdoing and right doing.” By hearing the bird sing, the heart of the student was awakened, and she saw that living from the heart was the secret of NVC. NVC is really not so much a secret really, but a choice to being open to hear the song of life around us.

And Also

Open Heart

A few nights back I had a dream where "the answer" to life and the complexity of our days was "and also." It was a phrase to be uttered whenever I had a thought, or a judgment of a situation. By saying "and also" I cued myself to keep opening up to possibility and to what was going on in me and others. To say these words was to keep the heart open to what might be the deeper truth of my days - that all beings have inherent worth and dignity and that every moment is rich with the possibility of understanding and interconnection.

For instance, I might think, I am tired and don't want to work on this project.

And also...

I enjoy this project I am doing and the people who will be there.

And also...

My body is telling me I am sleepy and it would be good to take a nap

And also...

Wow, a nap in the sun would be so nice right now.

And also...

Gosh, the sun and sky are so beautiful today after all the rain.

And also...

It is good to be alive this day and to slow down to see the beauty before me.

What do you do to keep your heart open to possibility and connection?

When is a Jerk a Jerk?

In recent conversations I have heard others argue, "sometimes you just have to call people jerks." They aren't saying that you need to say this out loud to others, or that the people whose behavior doesn't meet your needs aren't children of God or the Universe. What they are trying to communicate to me is that certain behavior is "not acceptable." By calling people a jerk you have passed a judgment on the actions and not on the people themselves who of course, according to our Unitarian Universalist principles, always have inherent worth and dignity. So it's okay to let the inner chatter label people as jerks, right? Or to use this label or any other label as a short cut to trusted friends to speed up and clarify communication, right?

I've been thinking about this and here's what goes on for me. If I use the word "jerk" or categorize people in any way, even just in my thoughts, I shift. My heart constricts and I am less open to listening, empathizing, and connecting to other people and the dream of the way I wish to live. As a practitioner of Compassionate Communication therefore I attempt to identify the needs of what others are attempting to meet and let that be both the inner and outer conversation. In this way my heart opens to life and possibility and what we might do together.

Practice: One time today, observe when you label someone and she how you feel with this. Then identify the needs the person is pursuing and attempt to empathize with them. Does this make a difference in how you feel?