Open Heart

Grounding

When I think of good childhood Thanksgivings I think of my grandfather. In a family of restless people, he was a lively stillness and equanimity that was a pleasure to be around. His field of being was infectious and I felt more settled in his presence. My grandparent’s house was filled with the things they brought back from their time as missionaries in Japan and I didn’t recognize until much later that Buddhism may have affected him more than the other way around. The Methodism I’d grown up with seemed to have more to do with how to behave and wearing uncomfortable clothes. Unlike so many who remember wise sayings from their elders, I can’t remember anything he said, but more how he was. He was more of a place than a person, a place where I felt seen and accepted and he brought that place with him whenever he visited. Most memory is in imagery, no longer subject to time. When a loved one is sick and dying, that’s the imagery that fills thoughts of them. When they’re gone all memories are there simultaneously. At a time when people are apart for Thanksgiving, it could be grounding to remember grandparents or whoever has understood us in a way that mattered. The imagery of memory carries the feeling of being there, emotion better understood by repeated reflection. Gurdjieff wrote that, “Feeling is the foundation of common sense.” Strengthening what stirs positive feeling reinforces those circuits. Particularly in stressful times, this may help us keep balance. Understanding emotional signals lays the groundwork for symbolic thinking later. Intelligence is built on early back and forth interaction. The larger the social group, the larger the frontal cortex. The matriarchal bonobo group live in extended communities and have among the biggest of monkey frontal cortex. Recent research has shown that the greater and more complex the emotional communication in which a species engages, the higher the intelligence. Attachment is important because it makes a baby want to signal. Words are learned more easily with emotional connection. Emotion integrates various currents of mental activity. Who we’ve valued and the images and feelings associated with them could be a subject of conversations that include everyone that’s not there, vivid in their place in the painting of our lives, equally there with the areas we’re still developing. One of the positives students have attributed to our time of covid is better understanding of themselves. It takes so much psychological resourcefulness to be alone for extended periods. Thinking about people who have strengthened what’s valuable in us can bring us back to center. When we can’t have people in the flesh, remembering can keep the mental wiring active and the people in our head can keep us company.