THE HEART-BRAIN ALLIANCE

 Q. I accept that the heart communicates with other internal organs. Nonetheless, shouldn’t it take back seat, when compared to the significance of brain development?

A. In 1991 the work of Dr. J. Andrew Armour introduced the startling concept of the brain in the heart. His research revealed the heart has a nervous system that is a complex network of around 40,000 neurons and neurotransmitters just like those in the brain.

Even more intriguing, this ‘heart brain’ is in dialogue with the ‘head brain.’ The heart to head information flows by way of the vagus nerve, to the medulla, through the amygdala, to the cortical areas.

There’s still more. The heart produces hormones that travel through appropriate arteries to all the organs in the body, including the brain. These hormones include neopinephrine, dopamine, and the ‘bonding hormone’ oxytocin. Oxytocin, present in parents as they cuddle their babies, also significantly affects pair bonding, levels of tolerance and cognition.

Cognition? Yes, cognition, as in learning and thinking. The brain in the heart helps the brain in the head think better. There are many advantages of an open channel of communication between the heart and head.

Now imagine a child learning while enveloped in the heart fields (12 ft in diameter) of elders who listen to the voice of their hearts and, likewise, cherish the child’s open channel. This opens a tantalizing new way to look at learning.

When the parents/teachers listen to the voice of the heart brain (their own, as well as the child’s), the child feels cherished, trusted and stimulated by engaging curricula, caring relationships and inviting surroundings. The child’s gaze is clear, the intelligence switched on, the hands and feet productively engaged. In this fresh envisioning of education, communities of elders and children actively create, work toward meaningful goals and harvest the fruits of their labors together.

Does this mean throwing out academics? No. It means the academics ride more naturally and easily into receptacles for scintillating intelligence, ie. beneficiaries of an open, flowing heart/head dialogue.

By contrast, have you ever been in a conversation in which another speaks so loud and long that you can hardly get in a word? In humankind’s current experiment with education that’s how the rational voice speaks over the quiet voice of the heart. The loud voice of the intellect concerns itself with how much, how fast, how much more, and how much faster the child absorbs and stores data. Adults anxiously measure this progress against norms.

Many child brains freeze up and/or seek escape from such a barrage.

The voice of the heart quietly confers about the quality, ie. the joyful, meaningful, compelling and creative self-expression inherent in  the learning experience.

Einstein said, “Creativity is intelligence having fun.”

In the past our society has not known that regimented schools, excessive paperwork and red X’s on papers obstruct the heart brain/head brain communication channel. Now we do. Now is the time to design systems that promote an open, healthful, intelligence-optimizing flow. In the wake of the rule of autocracy, let the reign of the heart/brain synchronicity begin.

GUARDIANSHIP

Q. I think you emphasize the importance of the feminine influence at the expense of the masculine. Don't you agree that children need the balance of both influences?

A. In the above photo, the clear, intelligent gaze of the child shines through a beautiful countenance.  Heart to heart, in the strong, protective arms of the loving father, the little one sits poised to take on the world. The Designer whispers to the child to explore endlessly; to touch and manipulate everything; to fearlessly connect with the surroundings. The child feels safe in the embrace of a valorous love that that would give its life for the child’s. This moving expression of masculine guardianship energizes the toddler’s full throttle venture into an inviting world. Who can effectively challenge such a formula for each child’s highest achievement of a unique destiny?

 Yet, for over a century, humankind has attempted to supersede this Design for childhood’s most brilliant expression.  At the beginning of the nineteenth century business tycoons and prominent persons in the U.S. sought a suitable model to educate the future workforce. A delegate to Prussia saw that the school children sat still and silent in rows, obediently tending to tasks assigned by the stern-faced teacher, speaking only when prodded by the militaristic presence at the front of the room. Once adopted, this authoritarian model severed academics from livingness in forced confinement. A systemic inversion of masculine power banished feminine influence at the expense of a child’s natural growth in intelligence. Future generations learned to distrust and authoritatively subdue childhood’s persistent drive to engage the world, to break through the walls of restraint.

Some of us remember special teachers that did tear down the walls. My 7^th grade teacher, Mrs. Trader, shines as a sterling model and mentor.  During world history I remember the joy of designing a Greek house with scrounged tiles from a construction site. What fun it was to divide into groups for lively discussions of the stories in the basal reader. To this day, I recall well the Civil War period, because the Abraham Lincoln Play served as our review and ‘test’. Writing the play, memorizing lines and making props and costumes required hard work directed by collaborative enthusiasm. In Mrs. Trader’s class I discovered I loved to write.

The contrast between the lusterless eyes of the cowed children across the hall, that moved about in straight, silent lines—and the bright, intelligent expressions of the children in Mrs. Trader’s class made a lasting impression. As the audience for the Abe Lincoln play, was the other group’s enjoyment tinged with yearning?

At the end of the day, the teacher across the hall stood sedately by the door as her subdued group filed out. Yet, I often noted that as our lively group exited, Mrs. Trader wearily cradled her head in her arms folded on the desk.

I now appreciate that the success of each day pivoted on Mrs. Trader’s exhaustive creative expression that sparked our own. She offered her whole heart to orchestrate, rather than subdue, our exuberance.

Mrs. Trader, I am deeply grateful to have flourished that year in a heart field charged with such intelligent, compassionate, valorous love. May the Spirit that expanded your heart, energize education today, and free the brilliance of childhood.

May the balanced presence of Feminine Intuition and Masculine Guardianship revere the deep pools of intelligence that shine through each child’s eyes. May the example of a single teacher’s bold departure from the norm in the ‘50’s become the norm of today. In school and out, may the Valorous Masculine empower the endlessly, restlessly exploring hands and feet – the Designer’s Tools of Potential gifted to children for the stimulation of genius – imminent and transcendent.

HEART TO HEART

Q. Why do you emphasize the heart so much in children's learning? Shouldn't this aspect of childhood be focused more on their brains?

A. We are accustomed to the heart’s power being referred to metaphorically in poetry and song.  On the other hand, science has designated the heart as merely a mechanical pump. Yet, recent research led by the Institute of HeartMath has revealed the astounding power of the heart to impact physical and emotional health as well as intuitive and rational intelligence.

In his book Biology of Transcendence Joseph Chilton Pearce describes an experiment with live rodent heart cells in biology lab. After some time on a slide, the pulsing cells would fibrillate until death. Pearce recalls the next stage of the experiment:

“We could take two live heart cells, keep them separated on the slide, and, when fibrillation began, bring them closer together. At some magical point of spatial proximity they would stop fibrillating and resume their regular pulsing in synchrony with each other—a microscopic heart … The two cells didn’t have to touch for this magical bonding to occur, and could in fact be separated by a tiny barrier.”

But the question was, how did those cells communicate across a spatial and even physical barrier?

 Science has confirmed that all living cells produce an electrical field, but a heart cell’s output is exceptionally strong. In the words of Pearce, “ That congregation within us, billions of little generators working in unison, produces two and a half watts of electrical energy with each heartbeat at an amplitude forty to sixty times greater than that of brain waves—enough to light a small electric bulb.”

There’s more to the story. This electromagnetic heart field radiates some 12 to 15 feet from the body.

This and a series of blogs to follow concerning the role of the heart suggest deep reflection on such a powerful organism. Consider this question: If two heart cells can save each other’s lives, what are the implications for two hearts beating in close proximity?

Can it be coincidental that the same entrainment that occurs between heart cells on a slide occurs between mother and infant as the baby nurses? The brilliant Architect of Love has placed the mother’s breasts at the level of the heart. Heart to heart, as the infant nurses, the mother’s heart strengthens her baby’s. As the hormones of bonding secrete, and the hearts pulse with synchronous beats, the two become as one unified field of love. Logic is not sufficient to capture the beauty of such attention to design. Only the sense of awe and wonder that arises from the heart can capture such magnificence.

The deeper we peer into the powerful energetics of the heart, the more wonderful the discoveries. That is why even a thousand blogs would barely lift the veil on this organ, this conduit of the soul for empowered love and intelligence in each human being.

But let us touch the hem of truth’s garment as we continue to discuss the centrality of the heart, for this has profound implications, not only for our relationships with children, but the learning institutions where we place them several hours a day.

We are at a crossroads in history, in which nothing could be more important than expanded realization of the power and intelligence of the heart to bring healing, peace, and Whole Being Intelligence to our children and the world.

REAL LEARNING FOR THE REAL WORLD

Q. Granted, the children are happy at RMS. But the hours in nature and the loving environment are just too idyllic. How will such children ever survive in the real world?

A.  Observing nature’s kingdoms, we see that the higher the intelligence quotient in the animal kingdom, the more likely the offspring enjoy prolonged maternal care and guidance. Elephants lavish tender, loving care on their young. The whole herd celebrates each new birth and greets the newborn. First year calves stay in constant touch with their mother, even walking under her in the traveling herd. A nine year old still spends half the time within a few yards of the mother, 5 or 6 years after weaning.

   Elephants are known for the lifelong bonds of affection that strengthen the herd. Even the group that splinters off to form the nucleus of a new herd retains the sense of kinship. Communicating with calls beyond our ability to hear, the herds approach from miles apart to gather at a familiar watering hole. At the destination, the matriarchs are the first to trumpet an exuberant greeting, and run for the tender trunk caress of a long lost relative.

   While the intelligent matriarch relies on the accuracy of her memory to lead the herd to watering holes, humans have new levels to consider in the guidance of our young. We have been gifted with intelligence that grasps abstract concepts; that includes an imagination capable of conceiving new possibilities; that ponders and reflects on one’s own existence and relationships.

   Human generative intelligence can design and redesign its own social systems. Understandably, the initial approach to schooling was in schoolhouses for learning the three ‘r’s, not otherwise covered in farming or subsistence living. Later two working parents necessitated a place to house and educate children during the day. A century later smartness is often judged by exercise of the memory, accompanied by pride in markers that mean little in the totality of life.  Like muscles that require flexing, invaluable traits that foster high intelligence, including a fertile imagination, enthusiasm for whole brain/body challenges, and the individual will to forge new pathways, atrophy in seated confinement.

   Like baby elephants our children learn best in the livingness of life, encouraged by the whole herd. A new challenge beckons: how to fold the learning of children into the warmth of community, the accessibility of wild nature, and the vitality of meaningful experiences and projects. The goal is to massage vitality into the soul, heart, brain, body intelligence in sync. Atop the graves of grades and scores for children, let new markers measure the system’s proficiency in finding the key to each child’s enthusiasm for a unique, fulfilling path. In this case independently derived goals drive the learning. Coupled with the richness of experiential imprints, the memory becomes a resource for real human brilliance to meet pressing social and ecological challenges.

   Graduates empowered by real learning can greatly impact the real world.

ECO-PSYCHOLOGY AND EMPATHY

Q. My concern is the sense of moral responsibility of children. If they are coddled by adults that don't hold them responsible for their behavior, won't they grow up to be selfish and irresponsible?

A. The innocence of the newborn babe remains indelibly in the depths of the individual through all the stages of childhood and into adulthood.

Eco-psychology harmonizes all aspects of the body/emotion/mind/spirit entity that is the totality of the child. This means that in every interaction with children we are most effective when we speak directly to the energetic heart, which is the interface between the physical being and the spiritual essence.

Recently, due to exclusion from a party, a child retaliated for wounded feelings, by destroying the costly property of another. The teacher requested a meeting with the perpetrator of the violation. Knowing that the only effective instrument of psychological healing is empathy, she proceeded to identify with the pain of exclusion that motivated the child. Sitting at eye level, the expression in the adult’s eyes and the tone of her voice communicated compassion, while her words relayed understanding – in other words, identification with the child’s painful emotions.

At the end of the meeting when gently probed about the incident the child denied culpability, as had been her habit in similar past circumstances. The meeting concluded with a warm hug. Half an hour later the child approached the teacher and admitted her vengeful action. Integrity was empathy’s first victory.

The teacher then requested a meeting between the child, two by-stander accomplices and the person whose property was damaged. The next stage of heart- to-heart dialogue ensued to discover the means for compensation. The meeting that began with quiet hesitancy concluded with enthusiastic planning. Brainstorming was empathy’s next victory.

A unified spirit steered the course until the four girls agreed to set up a cookies and hot chocolate booth to raise money. Mothers joined the collaboration to supply ingredients for baking at home, thermoses and cups for the hot chocolate, and a table for the booth. That Friday in happy camaraderie four eager participants hosted a hot chocolate booth supplied with cookies they had each baked. Unity was empathy’s third victory.

They raised $70.00. Heart-impelled Compensation was empathy’s crowning victory.

Adult admonitions and control measures would more likely have perpetuated hostile division, and grudging compensation. Instead, the healing waters of compassion dissolved disunity in the soil of joyful possibilities.

By feeling into the inner terrain of the child, and with heart-to-heart listening and dialogue, all participants, including the adults, enjoy a return to innocence. Furthermore, when we tune our relationships to beautiful harmonics, we set in motion resonances to reverberate through 7 X 7 generations of similar human challenges.

CANINE COMMUNICATIONS

Q. You advocate relationships that forgo punishments and rewards to choose empathy (compassion + understanding). But isn’t it our duty to teach our children moral values through deserved consequences?

A. At this time of human awakening, science reveals that we collectively participate in quantum communications. Brain-derived coercive manipulations engender power over another’s actions. Yet, the quantum exchanges of the heart empower relationships with the potential to flow together. While the first is dominating and even adversarial, the second engages heart to heart dialogue. This is a life-changing discovery if our intent is to reach beyond behaviors to motives.

Contrived consequences and rewards elicit socially acceptable behaviors motivated by emotions such as fear or greed. Yet, the child’s soul and its conduit the heart are deaf/mute to such compulsions. If the goal is soul-impelled ethics, the greatest need for discipline is the adult’s. This is the penultimate opportunity to practice union, yoga, or spiritual attunement. Penetrating self-reflection, insight, patience, trust and an ear to the heart’s voice assist the co-generation of a mutually beneficial flow. Heartfelt perceptions trigger telepathic rapport and intuited solutions. As we dismantle learned barriers to harmonious relationships, soul-satisfying powers bring conflict resolution and dissolve divisions between elder and child.

Animal behavior hints at the psychic attunement that is our natural state. The naturalist William J. Long observed this sixth sense to be even more useful to many animal species than their physical senses. Among wolves an awareness of pack members miles away repeatedly led a lone wounded wolf straight to the remains of their kill. Long frequently observed the power of telepathy in mother/offspring relationships. So mutually attuned is the canine mother and her pups that the lift of her head and a silent stare brings a wandering pup to her side. Without ever uttering a warning growl, a vixen manages her pups, which romp for hours near their mother. At the time of her evening hunt she simply stands motionless without a sound. The pups cease their play and gather around her, before retreating to the den for safety. Similar instances of silent, instant communications, unimpeded by distance, abound among species from felines, to birds, to elephants and whales.

The human child’s agitated behavior is a cry for respect for his feelings and needs in a world that persistently calls our attention elsewhere. By including the child’s world in our own, even as chores, schedules and meetings beckon, we can develop an intuitive, heart to heart, rapport. The brain, as the telepathic receptor, decodes what the heart intuits. This heart/brain insight helps us anticipate potential upsets. With intuitive grace we replace knee-jerk reactions with mindful responses to promote harmonious flow. 

The self-discipline of forgoing emotionally charged reactions to choose heart-infused responses reverberates beyond the lives of current participants. Thanks to our efforts to achieve this Living Union, future generations will more easily master the heart/mind’s intuitive/telepathic rapport. This has astounding implications for gathering momentum to reach beyond individuals and empower Nations as well.

ECOLOGY AND ECO-PSYCHOLOGY

Q. Why do you emphasize the term eco-psychology? Is this more of your emphasis on placing children in nature? What about their human relationships?

A. Eco-psychology is a powerful term for this generation because of our appreciation for ecology in reference to planetary biomes. However, the term eco-psychology, coined about a decade ago, reaches deep into the inner terrains of children to include psychological, physiological and spiritual realities. The term “Deep Ecology”, offers a complementary reference to the power of Nature’s energetic blueprints—to this psychology that reaches deep into the hearts and minds of children.

We, as conscious guardians of childhood, have the power to squelch or free the energetic substrata that that births and sustains human life. When we work with nature, we can replicate the remarkable restorative powers of Nature’s energetic blueprint.

In 1986, 60,000 people in the Soviet Union were evacuated from the area surrounding the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant after a catastrophic explosion released large quantities of radioactivity into the atmosphere. Prior to this the society had leveled thousands of acres of forest to install farms, roads and buildings around this reactor.  Yet, less than three decades later a team of scientists has discovered a remarkable rebirth, a primeval forest teaming with life.  Wildlife including wolves, moose, bears, beavers and bison are thriving in the self-restoring ecosystem. Nature, freed from mankind’s controlling, leveling tendencies and destructive potentials, has restored a living profusion in realms of breathtaking beauty.

That same burgeoning life force seeks expression in the human family. Nature’s energetic substrata as expressed in our children reaches by way of emotional domains to the very heart and soul of the child. Systems that suppress exuberant self-expression tend to override innate potentials to produce tame, subdued versions of ourselves. Schools that promote thriving populations are more like eco-systems than institutions.

In the wild the individual flora and fauna thrive according to Nature’s energetic blueprints. Similarly, the nurtured human imagination envisions unique expressions of the prolific life-force within. The imagination, which tends to atrophy in homogenous regimes, is meant to flow from an unseen Source on currents of joy. Its purpose?—the creation of Beauty.

Eco-psychology bespeaks academic knowledge that rides on Nature’s currents of joy and blueprints for generativity (creativity/innovation). Our inviting challenge is to design organic, LIFE-affirming systems for learning. Once freed, restorative powers inherent in the human family, will reveal astonishing generative potentials, enabling future generations to flourish.