This is the ideal week for cultivating our heart’s wisdom. Knowing how to tune in to our wise inner voice can calm us in these turbulent times.
I took part in Charlene Ray’s Heart Wisdom workshop Feb. 8th. The Zoom class included two hours of poetry readings, student writing, meditation and going deep into guided imagery. I felt the benefits in the form of clarity the next day while writing this story.
“The reason we’re engaged in these February classes is to learn how to be, how to handle these moments in the world, to figure out how much we need to know, and figure out what we’re supposed to bring to the world,” Charlene said during the class. “We need to slow down to care for ourselves.”
One way of slowing down is by reading or listening to poetry.
While he lived in the 14th Century, Sufi poet Shams-ud-din Muhammad Hafiz wrote poetry that still resonates today.
For the first writing prompt Charlene read the mystic’s poem: “We Have Not Come to Take Prisoners.” The poem ends with the line: “We have not come here to take prisoners/Or to confine our wondrous spirits./But to experience ever and ever more deeply/Our divine courage, freedom and light.”
“For us to know the wisdom of our heart, our emotional and spiritual—also our physical heart, we have to listen,” Charlene said. “In order to listen we have to stop the doing, and pause and listen in the silence to what the heart is trying to say. Sometimes I use the cue of putting a hand on my heart.”
Charlene Ray is a counselor, interfaith minister, Celtic wisdom guide, author, teacher and advocate for the natural world.
Last week I visited with Charlene and her adopted kitten Cian Seanachai, pronounced Keè-an Sean-a-kee.
“Cian means enduring in Irish,” Charlene explained, as the young tabby leaped around her office, which is housed in the former art classroom for Bayview High School. “Cian was born on the day my friend John in Ireland died. I believe Cian was his gift to me. Cian’s full name means enduring storyteller. I feel like he’s a bit of the same spirit—both very wise and ridiculously funny.”
A rescue from WAIF Cat Cottage in Freeland, Cian helps fill the pain of another loss, that of her beloved dog, Pooka, part of her family for 15 years, who passed from life in late January.
During our visit, Charlene said that in Celtic lore Imbolc is celebrated February 1. Imbolc marks the midpoint between the winter solstice and spring equinox, and honors goddess Brigid, who is associated with ironwork, poetry, and healing. It’s also the time when spring bulbs begin to peek through the snow and ice we received the first week of February.
“What I love about the Celtic calendar is we have these built-in times to pause and reflect,” Charlene said. “Any time we’re going through a period of transition and change, we need to pause and discern what’s important, what’s true. We can get overloaded. You really have to monitor what you take in. We need to have time away from the media to know what’s important is being able to stay in the present.”
Ways to stay in the present, Charlene said, include pausing and taking a breath. Being in nature. “Find beauty. From there, we can ask the questions, ‘…what do I need to let go of to go forward? What no longer serves me?”
Considering these questions helps us think about what we want to embrace, protect, do and take action on in our own lives, she noted.
“Part of it for me is how do we keep an awakened heart—a heart that’s close to the purpose for our reason for being here when we’re in the midst of change?” Charlene mused.
As a means of awakening, Charlene’s February workshops held Saturdays from 9 AM to 11 AM contemplate the ways we can find meaning:
Grief Wisdom—Feb. 1: “a sense of bringing personal and collective grief for people, animals, the earth, what we’ve lost. In that class we talked about what wisdom comes from the way we’re transformed by grief.”
Heart Wisdom—Feb. 8: “It’s about moving into our feelings.” Part of the workshop included three 2-minute speed writing prompts: “My heart says… My heart invites me to…The truth of my heart is…”
Nature Wisdom—Feb. 15: “What can we learn from paying attention to nature and its seasons. Seeking solace.”
Soul Wisdom—Feb. 22: “Our purpose for being on the planet at this time.”
Continuing our bond with loved ones who have passed on is the focus for Charlene’s March workshop.
“Grief is a topic I frequently work with,” she said. “Grief transforms us and we can continue to have relationships with our beloveds. It might be in the signs they send us that they’re still around. Some will feel they wish to live their life in a way their loved one would want them to. Sometimes there is a sense of renewed purpose. For some it’s a definite mission related to how the person died.”
While we are alive on Earth, Charlene added, our mission could involve finding common ground with others.
At a workshop she attended last November on how to take awakened action, Charlene recalled a quote she heard spoken, and written by a Chinese poet. It resonated with her intentions for 2025: “The nation is shattered/Mountains and rivers remain.”
“No matter what’s going on, nature remains,” Charlene said. “I look at that if I’m feeling anxious, or grief. I can go outside and be in the presence of trees and look at the sky—night sky, day sky. The incredible moon. The planetary alignment that’s so gorgeous. Birdsong. There’s still this beauty. That’s something important.”
It’s doing these simple things that can bring us back to center, to our heart’s wisdom. Charlene’s cat knows about doing simple things that work. He practiced cat Zen while she held her two-hour workshop on heart wisdom Feb. 8.
“When he gets really relaxed, he’ll lie on his back,” Charlene said. “He was in total meditation during class.”
Many counselors use therapy animals in their practice. Cian is in training for Charlene’s. But there’s still work to do. “I’ve always wanted a therapy cat,” she said. “In six months he can be an official therapy cat.”
To learn more about workshops, counseling services and an upcoming trip to Ireland’s sacred places, visit Charlene Ray’s webpage.
1 Comment
Nice. Thank you