Where is Your Heart Right Now in the World?

A high school friend with whom I've recently connected on Facebook shared with me that his son was his heart walking around outside him in the world. I may have the quote just a tad wrong, but hopefully you get the amazingly beautiful essence of what he meant. Phil's comment was so profound I couldn't forget it. I found myself wondering what form my heart takes in the world outside me.

Then it occurred to me while watching the birds this morning. My heart walking around outside me in the world, is the world, but in particular the natural world.

This is why I feed the birds, deer and foxes nearly as well as I feed myself and find great joy in doing so.

This is why every day I click the 'donate food' box on the Animal Rescue Site. Corporate sponsors of the site do the donating. I just click the box.

This is why I sign every petition I receive related to halting aerial helicopter hunting of wolves in Alaska or more recently the wolf-killing derbies sponsored by a sporting good stores in Idaho.

This is why I request petitions related to safeguarding the rainforests and stopping Mountain Top Removal from care2 .

This is why I'm an avid user of cloth bags, not plastic, and reuse jars for canning.

This is why I hug and talk to trees, catch bugs in my home in a little jar then release them outside where they're food for a bird, part of the cycle of life, versus just squashed by my hand.

This is why I use a hav-a-hart trap to catch the mice in my basement seeking shelter from the cold as well as the neighbors cat rather than a trap that kills them.

Nature is my child. Nature is my heart walking around outside me.

And as my friend has already experienced or will do so when his son encounters the bumps and bruises of living, I hurt with what I see being done to nature. Frankly it's more than hurt. I weep over how we treat animals and the natural world. Yet now I also take heart because there are people of heart, not just women, but men of heart too, who recognize their hearts in the world wherever that might be.

Just this morning I heard an interview with Sacred Activist Andrew Harvey as he spoke with the founder of Earth Fire Institute, a forty acre sanctuary in Idaho (home of the wolf derbies) where wolves, bears and other animals indigenous to the area live safely and are honored and loved.

I know at least two other people who transport little bugs to jars for safe passage outside rather than to the trash and have so many friends who are tree hugging, wolf loving, petition signing souls.

Thank you, Phil, for sharing your experience as well as allowing me to share it. We may not have taken or had the opportunity to learn from one another in school, but it's never too late to learn from one another now.

To you dear reader, I ask: Where is your heart right now in the world?

-Dawn! The Good News Muse - who occassionally rants rather than musing

** Good News: You can click on any of the highlighted words in the story above to learn more, send free cat/dog food to a shelter and yes, sign petitions at no charge ! This is Good News.