Episode 8: Love, Loverators, and the Power of Living a Heart-Centered Life

Welcome to the Carousel of Happiness Podcast. In honor of Valentine’s Day this week, today’s episode is all about love and the heart. But not a love  made of paper hearts, but one that is being circulated throughout the carousel community through a new addition to the roof. On today’s episode, we’ll talk about the electromagnetic field of the carousel, the anatomy of the human heart, and the power of living a heart-centered life. 

The Carousel of Happiness is a nonprofit arts & culture organization dedicated to inspiring happiness, well-being, and service to others through stories and experiences.

If you enjoy the podcast, please consider visiting the Carousel of Happiness online (https://carouselofhappiness.org/), on social media (https://www.facebook.com/carouselofhappiness), or in real life; or consider donating (https://carouselofhappiness.app.neoncrm.com/forms/general-donation) to keep the carousel and its message alive and spinning 'round and 'round.

If you have a story to share, please reach out to Allie Wagner at outreach@carouselofhappiness.org

Special thanks to songwriter, performer, and friend of the carousel, Darryl Purpose (https://darrylpurpose.com/), for sharing his song, "Next Time Around," as our theme song.

Transcript

Welcome to the Carousel of Happiness Podcast. I’m your host, Allie Wagner. 

On our last episode, we heard the story of Rebecca Linn and her path to community-based acupuncture, which she offers for free at the carousel twice a week. On that episode, we explored the simultaneous complexity and simplicity of the human body, as well as our connection to each other. 

In honor of Valentine’s Day this week, today’s episode is all about love and the heart. But before you shut the podcast off here, I promise we’re going to talk about a different kind of love. A love that isn’t made of paper hearts, but one that is being circulated throughout the carousel community through a new addition to the roof. On today’s episode, we’ll talk about the electromagnetic field of the carousel, the anatomy of the human heart, and the power of living a heart-centered life. 

Let us begin with today’s story.

GONG

If you’ve driven by the carousel recently, you’ve likely noticed a new addition to the roof. Perched on the peak of the roof above the second floor balcony, you’ll see a metal pipe with a blue cylinder on top. It’s about a foot tall with a little cone top, and attached to the sides are four plastic funnels. And as the wind blows in Nederland, and boy does it blow here, air comes into the funnels and spins the conical cylinder around. And as it goes round and round, just like the carousel, you can read the words that surround the side of it – it reads peace, love, and joy.

This recent addition to the carousel is called the Loverator. It’s a whirligig that was made by local resident, carpenter, and self-described spiritual guy, Guy Pfiefer.

Guy is soft-spoken and thoughtful. I met him for the first time last week when he and Scott stopped by to install the Loverator at the carousel.

At first glance, Guy looks like the kind of guy who knows where everything is at the hardware store. When he told me later he was a carpenter I wasn’t surprised. It would make sense that he’d know his way around a hardware store. 

But once I got to talk with him I realized he’s not only the guy who knows where everything is at the hardware store. He’s the kind of guy who knows not only what aisle something is on, but what spot on the shelf. Guy is the kind of guy who knows the 2 in paint brushes got moved last week because Helen was out sick. Guy is the kind of guy who pays attention, he is present in this life in a way that allows him to notice details others might miss.

As he describes it, he’s the kind of guy who builds things you’ve never seen before. He just gets the idea to make something, like the Loverator, and he heads to the hardware store to make it happen.

Guy made his first Loverator for his backyard. It sits on his deck, and spins round and round, spreading the energy of love, peace, and joy with every turn.

And Guy loves his Loverator. According to him, love is the “source of all life and all being” and when he sees the whiligig spin and the words “love, peace and joy” go round and round, he can feel that energy spreading all around.

He loves to sit in his backyard and focus his attention on all of the love that is being pumped out of the Loverator courtesy of the wind.

Guy was very excited to show his Loverator to Scott. They’re friends. Part of a group of local “old guys” – their words, not mine – who meet at a local restaurant in town every Monday morning for breakfast. This “Elder Man’s Breakfast,” as Guy calls it, has been going on for at least a decade, probably closer to two at this point. 

Guy started coming to “Elder Man’s Breakfast” about two years ago though. He heard about it from Dave Currant who works at…you guessed it…the hardware store. 

And as Guy describes it, a handful of old guys gather together and check in on one another. Support each other. They meet once a week, as Guy explains to me, to share their love with one another. And according to Guy, “sharing love is heaven.”

Because Guy is the kind of guy who says that kind of stuff. To me. A person he just met. 

I spoke to Guy on the phone this week for about 20 minutes. And in that 20 minutes, we talked about love and the Loverator and how we’re spiritual beings having a physical experience. How the energy of love must flow to be reenergized. According to Guy, love must be circulated within us and between us to stay fresh, to stay vital. And the Loverator helps that happen. He believes the more love we share, the more we get in return.

And so when he offered to make Scott a Loverator for the carousel, Scott immediately said yes.

And this isn’t unusual for the carousel. Scott has collaborated with local artists, poets, and writers to bring their work and their gifts under the carousel umbrella. In the gift shop, you’ll find books of poetry inspired by the carousel, short stories inspired by the carousel, not to mention, the stained glass in the ceiling, the frescos on the wall, or these words on this podcast.

Scott is always bringing like-minded artists and collaborators into the fold. And, in thinking about love and the Loverator and the carousel’s role in spreading that love, I was reminded of a term I learned recently. Gnosis Cardiaca.

A term I first became aware of when reading the book “Evolutionary Herbalism” by Sajah (SAY jah) Popham (POP em). In it, he explains that gnosis cardiaca references the acquisition of wisdom from Nature through the direct perception of the heart.

He goes on to explain how the nervous system has three distinct groupings of neural tissue, located in the gut, the heart, and the brain. These distinct, yet connected, neural networks are our primary seats of consciousness or awareness. It is in these locations where our bodies perceive the world around us. And each of these areas perceives differently, through its unique lens. 

When we think about the gut, we’re talking about our instinctual self. The part of ourselves that is focused on protection and self-preservation. This is the part of us that scans for dangers in our environment, and signals to the body when basic needs like nourishment and hydration, need to be met. Early on in human evolution, this is where our primary focus was. On keeping ourselves alive and safe.

Slowly, as these basic needs were met, our attention and our awareness moved up the gut, toward the heart. Allowing us to experience our values, emotional truths, relationships and connections, as well as the meaning of life.

Then, later on in human evolution, we began to direct our attention to the mind. We saw the advent of science, as well as the industrial and technological revolutions. With our minds, we’re able to separate things, categorize them. Label them. Analyze them. With the mind, we pick things apart to understand the whole.

And, as a society, as a culture, we’ve come to lean very heavily on the intellectual brain. The mind. And, as a result, have lost touch with the heart. 

But what’s interesting is that we’re starting to learn more about the heart and its role in our bodies.

We now know that the heart is hardwired to the brain, with direct neural connections to the medulla, amygdala, cerebral cortex, and frontal lobes. These areas of the brain are responsible for not only basic physiological functions such as breathing and regulating heart rate, but also related to emotional memory, the translation of sensory data into meaning, problem solving, spatial orientation, and higher reasoning. Our hearts, in short, help control our mind’s perception of the world through this connection.

And the heart is connected to every single cell in the body through the pumping of blood. It has an electromagnetic field five thousand times larger than that of the brain. That means its electromagnetic field permeates every single cell in our bodies, and extends up to ten feet beyond the physical body.

There’s this cool thing that heart cells can do – they can be synchronized with one another. So, if you separate a single heart cell from the heart, it will fibrillate – or contract – randomly its own for a while, but will eventually die out. Now, if you put that same heart cell close enough to the heart itself, the electromagnetic field of the heart will bring that single heart cell back into its rhythm. They will synchronize or entrain with each other.

When we direct our awareness away from the brain and down into the heart, our entire body becomes synchronized with itself. When our perception or awareness is primarily in our heads, our body’s systems are left to their own devices, much like that isolated heart cell, and as a result, we can experience internal imbalances and we become out of tune with ourselves.

Our hearts are also our way to connect with the electromagnetic fields of the outside world – like people, plants, and animals and yes, carousels. 

I wonder how strong the electromagnetic field of the carousel is. Because it feels like it has its own rhythm. Its own beat. And it feels like if you get close enough to it, your system starts to entrain and sync up to it. You become part of a larger web, a piece of the collaborative tapestry.

And my conversation with Guy is a reminder of this. He and I were able to have such an incredibly deep and meaningful conversation with one another in 20 minutes because, through our connection with the carousel, we’re already to a certain extent on the same wavelength, part of the same frequency somehow. 

And it’s my hope that this podcast, much like the Loverator, will circulate the energy and love of the Carousel of Happiness to anybody who is listening with an open heart. 

And that, is something to celebrate this Valentine’s Day.

Speaking of spreading the love, big shoutout to Kelly from Evergreen, Colorado who visited the carousel this week because of the podcast. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

If you’re inspired to spend a little more time in your heart this week, SAY jah POP em recommends 4 practices to get you out of your head, and into your heart. 

The first one is easy, focus your attention down into your heart. During meditation or prayer or right before bed, you can focus on your heartbeat or feeling your chest move up and down. In this state of contemplation, you should feel simultaneously relaxed and focused. Rest there for 15 minutes or so. Repeat as desired. If it’s tricky at first, don’t worry, it takes a little bit of practice.

The second way to activate the heart is through our senses. Whenever we are aware of our sensory perception, we lose track of our thoughts. You can try this on the carousel, of course, or anywhere your senses are heightened. In the bath, on a walk, at the beach. Focus your attention on what you see, smell, touch, and taste around you, and watch as your thoughts melt away.

The third practice to access the heart space is through relaxation. You know you’re operating from the heart when your parasympathetic nervous system is activated. This is the “rest and digest” nervous system, as they call it, as opposed to “fight or flight.” Bring a little more relaxation into your day, and you’ll move yourself into your heart.

And lastly, you can connect with your breath. On a physiological level, the respiratory system is the shortest pathway to the heart. The breath is a bridge not only into the heart, but between the mind and body, as well. Breathing is governed by the autonomic nervous system (beyond our conscious control) and the somatic nervous system (within our conscious control), and we can use it to consciously control our minds, hearts and bodies.

If you try any of these practices let me know how it goes. How does it feel to be more connected to your heart? If you come into the carousel this week, what do you notice about your heart? How do you feel when you’re here? 

And if you are feeling the effects of the Loverator, send Guy some love. 

In the meantime, take care. Be well. And, as we like to say at the Carousel of Happiness, “don’t delay joy.” And we’ll see you next time around.