When the Head Serves the Heart
Hi! Alexandra here. As we’re already a week into February, I’d love to share a few musings about what I’ve been up to outside of the clinic, and about love! Always love!
Little known fact over here in the acupuncture world, is that I’ve been studying and practicing yoga for about 25 years. I’ve trained as a teacher of yoga and more recently, have been studying the harmonium. The harmonium, as an instrument, has a fascinating, multicultural history which I won’t go into here, but if you’re interested, look it up :) It’s a beautiful keyboard instrument that is often played with a brief chant to begin a yoga class or to end a class. It’s a fundamental instrument in kirtan, a call and response form of collective chanting, with roots in India.
In a recent harmonium class, I realized a beautiful connection between the Sikh lineage I’ve been studying and Classical Chinese Medicine. The Gurmukhi (written Punjabi language) mantra we are currently working on includes the word “nameh”, which means “to bow.” In the context of this mantra (Aaad Guray Nameh), nameh is teaching us to bow to the heart, to literally lower our head below our heart. As my teacher says, we “are bowing to let go of the head, and to come into the flow of the heart.” Our minds are great, powerful tools, and are best used to serve the heart.
“When the head serves the heart, this is a beautiful life.”
In Classical Chinese Medicine, the Heart is not distinguished from the mind. Many translations for “Heart” more accurately render it as “Heart-mind.” This languaging illuminates just how paramount the Heart is, and that this is in fact where our consciousness, or mind, actually resides. In the practice of Chinese Medicine, we are always protecting the Heart. We use other channels and pathways to divert pathology away from the Heart. One of our foundational classical texts, the Su Wen, states: “As the Heart is the monarch in the organs, it dominates the functions of the various viscera, so when the function of the Heart is strong and healthy, under its unified leadership, all the functions of the various viscera will be normal, the body will be healthy and the [person] will live a long life, and in [their] life long days, no serious disease will occur.” When we experience joy, the Heart sings, and all other organs/ channels benefit.
“When the head serves the heart, this is a beautiful life.”
In both of these lineages, the practice is to serve the Heart. This intention is a sweet contrast to Western culture’s heavy emphasis on the head/brain. Our minds are more overstimulated and overworked than ever, and both this Sikh lineage and its mantras, and the practice of Classical Chinese Medicine offer another path. What are practices that allow you to connect to your Heart? How, where, with whom do you feel at home in your Heart? Such questions might sound or feel trite initially, but if we feel into these questions, they are powerful tools for healing and transformation and can illuminate a lot about ourselves and our lives.