Dogs can hear well beyond the range of human hearing. In California, it’s been reported that dogs have heard the beginnings of earthquakes before seismographs could register their initial tremor. In just this way, there are those of us whose ability to feel, see, and hear others is beyond our normal range of compassion. We call them empaths or psychics. And we often discredit them because what they know because is beyond what we can sense.
A central physic of the heart is that the range of our compassion is widened each time we experience suffering or love. Like a mud-filled pipe that is hollowed out by the rain to carry water underground, the force of each experience clears us out. Listening, expressing, and writing are conscious ways to clear ourselves out and to expose and extend the range of what we feel. And so, the artist or poet in us is that deep part of who we are that keeps extending the range of our compassion.
A Question to Walk With: Describe someone who is more sensitive than you. How do you relate to their sensitivity? Do you dismiss it or see it as a gift? What would you want to ask them about their sensitivity?
This excerpt is from my book, Drinking from the River of Light: The Life of Expression, due out in September from Sounds True.
*Photo credit: Isabella Mariana
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