Heart Reading … Day 91
Heart-vesting the harvest of the self
Oh wow. I’m not sure I’m ready to write this heart reading. I feel giddy like I have been receiving so many spirit gifts and I honestly don’t feel worthy … yet. But if not now — when?
It is time.
These are the three words I heard in my head the day that I started writing the book Beyond Karen. It was the day after George Floyd died.
It is indeed time for all of us to feel worthy.
I remember a pivotal moment in my life when I identified as Catholic and had just started meditating with a community of practitioners of Engaged Buddhism. I was meditating on my bedroom floor and got stuck on the words, “I am not worthy to receive you but only say the word and I shall be healed.” The focus is supposed to be on God’s Word but there are WAY too many people oppressed by this Catholic admonishment and assertion of unworthiness.
When we feel unworthy we can be oppressed. When we know our source of liberation we cannot.
I am becoming clear that the spirit of God IS THE BREATH — the respiration and essence of life that flows in me, in you, and in every single living being.
What this means is that the moment by moment guidance we need in regards to our personal struggles, anxieties, doubts, fears, grief, overwhelm, and hard edges — is always right under our noses.
I have absolutely had this realization before. But each time (and it has been a while) a new and special dimension comes along with the re-membering. This time the extra “flavor” or “depth” I received is the impulse to say “hi” as I breathe! Does that sound wild to you? It feels beautiful to me. I practiced saying “hi” with each breath today as I waded in the water and walked through a special forest with Rosie (in the picture above). And because I’m typing this right now I am practicing it again — though it feels a bit like multitasking and it is complicated.
Having done so much “self help work” over the years, the phrase “harvest of the self” kind of makes me nauseous. And with the unreconciled issues with the Catholic church on everything from child rape to the Crusades, I struggle to admit that experiencing the slightly unique closeness of breath-spirit today also feels similar to the Christian footprints poem that ends: “when you saw only one set of footprints it was then that I carried you.”
At one point today I literally said, “hi … can you touch my toes?”
Yesterday I wrote about the harvest season and while doing a heart reading the phrase heart-vesting came to mind. All of these heart readings have been a sort of investment in the heart — and this phrase is just one more way to have fun with the words we use to make meaning.
