Heart Factoid

By Christine Mason

I was recently watching a show on quantum physics and the way that atoms can be isolated with extreme cold.  The educational show had many wonderful graphics and some fantastic videoclips of an object floating in space above a magnet.  As I watched, I reflected on quantum physics, energy, and all the messages that could be sent out as we approach February 14. Given CEI’s focus on heart beaming and Heart Centered Educationâ„¢, I wanted to send a brief message that might present some scientific evidence on the importance of heart felt activities.

Even after 15 years of teaching yoga, I also continue to be in awe of the relationship between energy, and yoga, breath, centering on one’s heart, and CEI’s heart beaming activity.  So as I went about my normal routine this morning, I was reflecting on the tremendous sense of well-being I experienced as I taught yoga last night, a Valentine’s Event my husband and I are hosting, and on my Valentine Day’s message to CEI blog readers.

Where should I focus? What might be of greatest interest to you?  Let me begin by suggesting that schools consider a practice that could be modified for other times as well– a “Valentine’s Poetry and Chocolate” event.  My husband and I have hosted this for about a decade, sharing our love of poetry with various friends over the years.  It works like this:  I have about 2 dozen poetry books, and I arrange the room so that the books are available in various corners, as well as on a table in the center of the room.  When invitations are sent out, people are encouraged to bring poems on love– love of nature, love of family, romantic love, etc. They can bring books, poems they have found online, or poems they have written.  People bring a potluck dish to share, poetry, and chocolate.  As we sit around eating, we find poems and read them aloud. Over the course of a few hours, we read from Rumi, poet laureates, Emily Dickinson, and other favorite poets.  Here is poem from Juan Felipe Herrera. Herrera, a U.S. Poet Laureate in 2015, was born in California, the son of an migrant farmer, and the first latino U.S. Poet Laureate.

Let me tell you what a Poem Is:

Before you go further, let me tell you what a poem brings, first, you must know the secret, there is no poem to speak of, it is a way to attain a life without boundaries, yes, it is that easy, a poem, imagine me telling you this, instead of going day by day against the razors, well, the judgments, all the tick-tock bronze, a leather jacket sizing you up, the fashion mall, for example, from the outside you think you are being entertained, when you enter, things change, you get caught by surprise, your mouth goes sour, you get thirsty, your legs grow cold standing still in the middle of a storm, a poem, of course, is always open for business too, except, as you can see, it isn’t exactly business that pulls your spirit into the alarming waters, there you can bathe, you can play, you can even join in on the gossip’”the mist, that is, the mist becomes central to your existence.

Okay, so I have shared a bit about how I celebrate Valentine’s Day. Let me also share a very brief  Heart Factoid that might be fun to share with your teachers and students. It also just might influence your teaching, your students, your school:

1. Laughter. From Web MD:  When you laugh, the lining of your blood vessel walls relaxes and expands. ‘A good belly laugh can send 20% more blood flowing through your entire body. One study found that when people watched a funny movie, their blood flow increased. That’s why laughter might just be the perfect antidote to stress.’

2. The Heart: A Pump. From Livescience.com:  “In under a minute, your heart can pump blood to every cell in your body. And over the course of a day, about 100,000 heart beats shuttle 2,000 gallons of oxygen-rich blood many times through about 60,000 miles of branching blood vessels that link together the cells of our organs and body parts.

3. Mirrors and Horse’s Hearts.  Also from Livescience.com: “A scientist found that horse’s heart rates mirror those of human subjects touching them. The horse emotion-detector could someday replace procedures used to measure a patient’s stress hormones. Next, the researcher will study service dogs to better match them with humans.

4. Comparing the size of the hearts of children and adults. From Dr. Joseph Mercola (a physician and fitness expert).

The heart, an amazing organ with tremendous capacity. A conclusion?  If you consider the basis of quantum physics, could focusing on our hearts influence our world? Another conclusion: If adult hearts are twice the size of children’s, what does that have to say about our capacity for love?

Have a blessed Valentine’s Day!