A few months ago, now, I received a Valentine’s Day card from two of my dearest friends. On the envelope, underneath my name, read “The Queen of Hearts.” I was gleeful. But as I looked at the word, “hearts”, I noticed another word – “hear.” In fact “hear” is the main part of the word “heart.”
I do this often. I’ll use a word, or rather seriously look at a word I’ve used thousands of times, and see another word at it’s root. In some cases, I’ve done this with someone’s name – where I’ll see a person’s name in a word and let them know, “hey, have you ever noticed that you’re name is in the word “x?” I find delight in this. Mostly because language is shaped by how people use it. It may have hundreds of years of history and usage, but it is ever evolving and changing as humans are too.
It is shocking to me that it has taken me nine years to figure this out. I cannot recall my use of the word heart prior to 2012, but that fall/winter, as I traveled around Japan, and noticed hearts everywhere I went, the word became part of my everyday vocabulary.
Back in 2021, though, as I began to explore this new finding, I started to pull apart both words – heart and hear. According to Webster’s II New Riverside Dictionary Revised Edition, Office Edition:
hear (hir) v. heard (hurd), hear-ing. 1. To perceive by ear. 2. To listen to with careful attention. 3. To get as information by hearing. 4. To listen to in order to examine officially or formally, as in a court of law. — hear’er n.
heart (hart) n. 1. The hollow, muscular, organ in vertebrates that receives blood from the veins and pumps it into the arteries by regular, rhythmic contraction. 2. The heart considered as an emotional center, as: a. Mood or disposition. b. Compassion : concern. c. Affection : love. d. Resolute courage. 3. The most central and essential part : basis <the heart of the controversy> 4. a. Any of a suit of playing cards marked with a conventionalized red heart-shaped design. b. hearts (sing. in number). A card game in which the object is either to avoid hearts when taking tricks or to take all the hearts. * syns: CORE, ESSENCE< GIST< KERNEL, MARROW, MEAT, NITTY-GRITTY, NUB, PITH, QUINTESSENCE, ROOT, SOUL, STUFF– by heart. By memory <learned it by heart> — with all (one’s) heart. 1. With great sincerity or devotion. 2. Very willingly.
(I apologize to everyone as I’m not even sure how to add the proper details as they do in dictionaries in what I’ve typed about above. Don’t judge me!)
Upon first glance both definitions seem completely unrelated. But they are not! Here’s why: to hear is to listen with careful attention, while the heart is an organ that receives information (ie., blood) by “regular, rhythmic contraction.”
In other words, the heart is a musical instrument that using rhythm, communicates throughout the body, by way of veins and arteries, the life saving, and extremely necessary blood, it needs to move forward and live. To hear is to be able to pick up the regular, and irregular, rhythms in our external and internal spaces. We may not hear our hearts beating, but we use our ability to hear to protect our heart, and therefore our bodies throughout every moment breathe courses through our lives.
Which brings me to wondering, why is it that we opt not to listen?
Don’t get me wrong, I am one of those people that usually needs to stop myself to listen to someone else. That will stop myself mid-interruption and say, “sorry, continue.” I know my brain is racing to find a response rather than listen to the other person. I’m actively working to stop this habit. I give extra credit to “The Listening Path,” by Julia Cameron that I read earlier this year.
Could our inability to listen be rooted in our inability to love? Our inability to see the constant love around us? The inability, even, to love ourselves?
I have been pondering love and trust since just before my 40th birthday last year. I’ve discovered the following gems:
*To trust one’s self, one must listen
*To love is to trust one’s self
*To love is to truly listen to your intuition, gut, and body as it speaks in various ways
*To actively listen to someone is to show an act of love
*To actively listen to someone and pick up on their energy is to also a sign of your own emotional intelligence
*Both, love and trust, require patience, compassion, and continuing practice
We all know the age old adages, “listen to your heart,” or “follow your heart,” but what if you aren’t willing to listen (aka, “can’t?”) to your heart? What if you’re heart isn’t open? How can you follow your heart if you can’t hear what it is telling you? More importantly, how can you claim heart (love), if you’re not listening?
I don’t have an answer for you. We have both – the power to hear and a heart pumping in our body. Whether our hearing is damaged or perfect; whether our heart has stints or none; at any point, we can decide to care for each by connecting the two and becoming better not just toward ourselves, but to everyone we come into communication.
What might you do to listen better? How might you practice listening to your heart so you can hear someone else’s heart and correspond?
If you’re looking for a quick suggestion – grab a notebook and pen and do some writing. Or grab a copy of Julia Cameron’s “The Writing Path” and start reading and writing. You’ll be glad you started.