The Head, Heart & Guts of the Matter
What is the Matter? What Matters?
Some say nothing matters. Others think everything matters. The idea of what is real or unreal has been a subject I’ve wondered about for decades. I began to fetter out my curiosity when I went to Peru with a small group in the early 1990s.
My mentor/teacher Tom Best, an anthropologist studied in indigenous cultures, gave me an unexpected invitation I did not refuse. Weeks later I traveled to Peru where my head was blown apart by new experiences.
Don Americo Yabar took our group into the Andean cosmology by way of a rocky side-road mountain road high above Cuzco to his 500+-year ancestral home, named Salka Wasi, the place of wild energy.
It is unclear whether his intent was to initiate the group to discover the root of what matters or if it was merely a by-product. What occurred for me was the reframing of a materialistic world view to some form of idealistic logic that was an opening into what I perceive as the heart of what matters. Ancient wisdom brought forth into a series of monumental moments.
Later I reflected on the Chandogya Upanishad:
“In the city of Brahman is a secret dwelling, the lotus of the heart. Within this dwelling is a space and within that space is the fulfillment of our desires. What is within that space should be longed for and realized. A great infinite space beyond is the space within the lotus of the heart. Both heaven and earth are contained in that inner space, both the fire and air, sun and moon, lightning and stars. Whether we know it in this world or know it not, everything is contained in that inner space”.
What had been perceived as inanimate became animated. The rocks and plants (no hallucinatory plants involved) became alive as we began to see through the example of the Mollomarka people who lived in the high mountain environment. The simplicity of their reality included the stars as living beings equal to our earthly experiences.
Over a period of days and a series of travels over seven years, the unravelling of my life rewound into deeper truths of cellular memory that led me to trust the knowing in my gut. Yep, my gut had ways of messaging my physical reality.
When I returned to my no longer normal life after the first encounter with Don Americo, my focus and attention turned inward. I studied the evolving scientific string theory and introductions to quantum physics
Exploring theories of Nikola Tesla, I began to see infinite possibilities that I could conjure up in my consciousness.
“The day science begins to study non-physical phenomena, it will make more progress in one decade that all the previous centuries of its existence.”My career took a different turn when it occurred to me that who we think we are creates our reality. No longer did I feel trapped to follow the expectations and template of what ‘work’ should be. My sense of identity began to morph into an expanded version of myself. Synchronicities and opportunities opened. My degrees in psychology and business intertwined with my understanding of the earth as a living organism. Viewing life as a self-organizing system has become a thoughtful approach in my everyday experiences.
What mattered to me in my heart-space became the navigation to align with the information in my gut that eventually aligned with my headspace. The triangulation of head-heart-gut informs my choices, supported by the notion that who I think I am matters. There is no duality about my identity. It is a matter of flexibility to move along the pathways that are merely continuums like a two-sided coin toss. Who we think we are sets up the framework of our values, beliefs and behaviors.