Meanwhile, down the hall, the US Army was also conducting a training course, with around two hundred participants. The theme of their weekend was "Never Surrender”. They were being trained to "Think hard”. They wore big boots and displayed a more "aggressive” attitude. When we met in the hall, we seemed an odd mix, but also perfectly balanced somehow. It left me with a lasting impression, causing me to consider the relationship between our heart and our head, in our own personal journey. Our heart, which feels the emotion, is where we store the sum of our experiences as memory that we access through our intuition. We may have a feeling and just have to act on it, in spite of perplexed looks from family and friends. We often cannot explain feelings logically, but as we mature, we learn to listen to our heart, honor the strong feelings, or often rue the consequences. I think of the heart as the holder of our wisdom, and the head (mind) as the holder our logic and knowledge. Our minds may be the tool needed to figure out what the heart wants and then activate the process of bringing it into being. With minimum ego interference, the heart and mind work together efficiently. Both are necessary, and I believe it takes effort to keep them in balance.
Both tools may be activated by day and night, rhythmically compelling us to work and relax, with the seasons dictating the amount of dark and light that we have in a day. I have come to wonder if this is not Nature’s way of helping us balance our heart and head. In the daylight, (and there is more of this in the spring and summer) we are assessing the needs of the day, and getting things done. Our minds and bodies are active. We move through spring and summer, physically active, with our brains busy figuring out how we will get it all done. Then, as a balance, we are pulled back into the fall and winter, when the action slows down and the longer nights leave our hearts more time to contemplate its need to APPRECIATE. When we begin the work of balancing our self, we can use both our head and heart; our knowledge and wisdom, paying attention to the time to be active, and the time to be still.