Felt with the Heart…
“The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched—they must be felt with the heart.” —Helen Keller
Have you ever been watching the sunset, listening to a beautiful piece of music, or reading a poem and had a visceral reaction to it that surprised you? So moved in the moment that you felt it in your body and sensed something has shifted within you?
There were plenty of those experiences during the Celtic Pilgrimage to Inishmore, Ireland, earlier this month.
While I’ll share more during my Summer Interlude session in August, one such felt sense experience came for many of our group at the end of our time together. One fellow pilgrim read to us a famous Irish blessing. We had all likely heard it a time or two. But after almost a week immersed in the land, history, Irish culture, and stunning beauty of Inishmore, I and others truly received that blessing. Bringing some of us to tears, we had a felt sense experience as the words wrapped around our hearts.
What can you immerse yourself in and be so present to that your engagement with this place, person, creature, words, or music becomes a felt sense in your heart and body? There just might be wisdom longing to be revealed and a transformation eager to begin in those felt sense experiences.
May you seek out opportunities to feel with your heart and fully embody the experiences your soul is longing to share with you.
A Felt Shift
“When that bodily Felt shift comes, you know it because it’s surprising, gives sudden relief, or a sudden, deeper breath, or it’s like fresh air or sudden, fresh, and bodily knowing, an inner sense of space, calm, groundedness or being larger.”
—Vera R. Fryd Lyngmo
An Irish Blessing
May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of his hand.
May God be with you and bless you:
May you see your children’s children.
May you be poor in misfortune,
rich in blessings.
May you know nothing but happiness
From this day forward.
May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the warm rays of sun fall upon your home,
And may the land of a friend always be near.
May green be the grass you walk on,
May blue be the skies above you,
May pure be the joys that surround you,
May true be the hearts that love you.
—Author Unknown. Photo courtesy of Dianna Amorde.
