I have used the following exercises with myself for more than thirty years and with my students for more than twenty. They can help tremendously in improving your ability to use the heart as an organ of perception, in refining your perceptions, in developing facility with emotional communications, and in reclaiming parts of yourself you may have put away long ago.

I recommend at least a year of weekly or daily work with these exercises to begin to habituate the skills.

⚘ Stephen Harrod Buhner, The Secret Teachings of Plants: The Intelligence of the Heart in the Direct Perception of Nature

EXERCISE 1: THE HUMAN WORLD

Funny how we use less sense than birds and animals.
⚘ GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER

Take a day or an afternoon and go to a part of your town that you like. Choose a part of town in which you feel naturally happy, that feels good to you. You are just going to be walking and visiting stores.

Begin by walking in the particular part of this area that you enjoy most. Let yourself sink into the feeling of the place, become immersed in it, relax into its nature.

Now. Look around you and pick the store you feel most drawn to. Walk to it and stand in front of it. Let yourself receive sensory impressions from it. Allow them to grow strong in your experience. Notice now the feelings that come to you from these sensory impressions. Let yourself explore them, touch their edges and shapes. Give yourself permission to be slow with this exploration, to not hurry. Allow yourself to notice any and all feelings that may arise, no matter how silly they seem.

In the beginning this may be confusing. The multisensory nature of human perception and feeling is so commonly repressed that it is often confusing, or scary, or awkward when you open up to it once more. Still, allow yourself to notice whatever you feel and—especially important—don’t make any judgments about it. Just notice it.

Pay attention to the doors. To the windows. To what is in the windows. To the sign or signs. To the sidewalk in front of the store. To any plants or trees that may be growing there. How does each part feel to you? Do some parts feel better than others? Can you tell why?

Overall, what is the primary feeling the store communicates to you? Is it prosperous? Comforting? Happy? Somber? Melancholy? Spend as much time as you need to feel as if you have explored every aspect of the store with your feelings and come to a conclusion about it. Write everything down in a special journal that you keep for these explorations.

All this is perfectly distinct to an observant eye, and yet could easily pass unnoticed by most.
⚘ HENRY DAVID THOREAU

Now. Look around the street. Pick another store but this time pick one that feels significantly different from the first. Go to it and repeat the process.

Compare the two stores. What different kinds of feelings did they generate? Can you tell why? Can you put this into words? (This may take some practice.)

Now go to a third store and repeat the process again. Compare your experience with the two you explored before.

Begin now to study the little things in your own door yard, going from the known to the nearest related unknown.
⚘ GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER

All of us unconsciously choose to go to stores or restaurants that meet emotional desires we have, to places in which we feel most comfortable, even though many other stores may sell the same things. This exercise is a process of beginning to consciously perceive and identify the embedded communications that come from the world around you and are felt in subtle emotions.

The businesses that people create embody the basic world perspectives, the underlying beliefs and orientations, that their owners possess. Businesses convey to customers specific meanings through the feelings the customers experience, though they may not normally be able to say what those feelings are. It is possible, after much practice, to identify these feelings, and from them to determine the organizational structure of a business, its level of psychological health, the impact it has on its customers, its degree of financial health, and a great many other things.

EXERCISE 2: PEOPLE

I found myself in a schoolroom where I could not fail to see and hear things worth seeing and hearing, where I could not help getting my lesson, for my lesson came to me.
⚘ HENRY DAVID THOREAU

Now go to a coffee house that you like—one with a bookstore is a good one for this exercise—a place you can linger for a while and have some coffee or tea. Choose a place you especially like. Take a table that has a good view of the room, one where you can get a good look at the people entering the shop.

Now. Let your eye go to whichever person you are drawn to most. Really let yourself see this person. Take the time to really let their sensory impressions enter you.

Since you will be looking at them with some intensity, you will have to be clever so that you do not make them nervous or make them wonder what you are doing or why. This works best if you can observe while you yourself remain unobserved.

What kinds of feelings do you get from this person? Happy? Sad? Nervous? Empty? Masculine? Feminine? Strong? Weak? Comfortable? Assured? Indulgent wealth? Indulgent emotion? Poverty?

What thoughts come to you when you look at this person’s face? Let yourself examine this face that you see. How does the chin feel to you? The nose? What is communicated from this person’s eyes? Ears? Nose? Chin? Forehead? Face?

Faces are extraordinarily faithful to the internal world of their owners, no matter how schooled someone is in “keeping face.” Each part of the face, through the feelings you feel, will tell you something about that person’s internal world.

Now. Look at this person’s hands. Do the hands seem alive and aware or asleep and unlived in? Are these hands strong or weak, happy or sad? Businesslike or filled with feeling? How old do you think this person is emotionally? Just let a number come. (Have you known other people who seem to be the same age? Are their hands similar to this person’s?)

Write everything down in your journal.

How do this person’s clothes feel? What do they communicate? How about the shoes? Is this person comfortable in these clothes, in the artificial skin that you see? Do the clothes match the feeling you have from looking at this person’s face?

Repeat this process with as many people as you wish—at least two. Compare the experiences you had with each.

Imagine if you can a diamond made of sensitized plates like those used in the finest camera, and then conceive of the infinite variety of pictures that are printed every day—every hour!—on the plastic and impressionable mind of the child! You think that he does not see that quick, angry gesture, or hear that sharp ugly word, or feel the impatience in that push you gave him, or understand that nasty allusion, or pick up that slovenly habit; but you are wrong. All the pictures are there. Every time the lens clicks there is a permanent record.
⚘ LUTHER BURBANK

The personal world—and the meanings—within which a person lives are communicated in every gesture, intonation, movement of eye and hand, every piece of clothing and stride of foot. It is possible, with practice, to learn to perceive all the elements of a person’s internal world and their meanings, to know what it is like to live there. To understand how other people experience this person in his or her daily life. To understand the emotional tenor of the life this person lives within.

EXERCISE 3: THE NATURAL WORLD

Go and live in it. . . fish in its streams, hunt in its forests, gather fuel from its water, its woods, cultivate the ground and pluck the wild fruits. This will be the surest and speediest way to those perceptions you covet.
⚘ HENRY DAVID THOREAU

Go to a place in Nature that you like. (Be sure and take a journal with you.) Choose a place you have been before, one with which you have some familiarity. Find the particular part of this place that you like most and let yourself relax into it. Sit down, really let yourself get comfortable.

How does this place feel? Try to describe it in words. Be as specific as you can. Go on in your journal at length if you need to. Write down everything that comes to you, no matter how silly it sounds. Even if you think it’s crazy.

When you are done, allow your eyes to rove, to be drawn to whatever thing in this place that is most interesting to you. Perhaps it is a rock, a plant, or a tree.

Look at it. Let your eye explore it. Notice everything about it. Look closely at the colors, the shape, how it rests on or grows in the ground. See its relation to the air around it, to the plants, water, soil, and rocks.

Now, notice what feelings you have about this thing and the parts of it you have noticed. Let them grow very strong within you. Write all of them down.

Is there any part of what you are looking at that you like more? That you like less? Can you determine why? Do all the parts of what you are looking at generate the same feeling or emotion? Or do they generate different emotions? Write everything down in your journal in detail.

Do this with at least two other things that you see. Make sure that one of them is a plant. You can get up close if you want to, place your eye on a level with its leaf, take an insect’s view of its plain. How is the plant shaped, how does it feel to your fingers, how does it smell? What emotions do each of these things generate in you? Write everything down.

The proper way is to acquire a learning directly from nature that requires no formal studies.
⚘ MASANOBU FUKUOKA

Now, go to another natural place, different from the first. Sit down and relax. Get comfortable. How does this place feel?

Does this second place feel different from the first place? How are the feelings different? Which place feels better? Is there a name you can give the feeling you had at the first place? A name you can give the second? Names that will make clear the difference in feeling that you perceive? If you can’t think of a word, make something up.

I educated myself in my own way without adopting any given or traditional approach. This allowed me to take up every new discovery with enthusiasm and pursue the investigation of things I myself had come upon. I profited from the useful without having to bother with the odious.
⚘ GOETHE

When you are finished with this, find something else your eye is drawn to and write down everything that you feel and perceive. Do this as well with two other things, at least one of them a plant.

EXERCISE 4: THE CHILD

All life, and particularly all animal life, is sensitive to outside impressions, but the child is far and away the most sensitive organism on the entire planet. . . The child is like a diamond, I have said more than once; its many facets receive impressions as clear and sharp as etchings.
⚘ LUTHER BURBANK

Sometimes it is helpful to make a tape recording of this next exercise and then to play it back. Instead of following the gender pronouns that I use in the exercise, use the correct pronoun for whichever gender you are. If you practice, you will find the perfect speed, pitch, and intonation for yourself to listen to.

Sit someplace comfortable. Someplace you won’t be disturbed. Someplace you feel safe and nurtured.

Close your eyes and take some deep breaths. Fill up your lungs as if they were balloons, fill them to bursting. Hold it, hold it, hold it. Then . . . slowly . . . release. As you let out the air in your lungs, let any tension you feel inside you release and flow out with your breath. Do this again . . . several times.

Begin with your toes, then your ankles, your knees. As you exhale each breath, let the tension in this part of your body flow out. Do this with each major part of your body, ending with your neck, face, and head.

Now. Imagine the floor or chair under you as two huge, cupped hands holding you. Let yourself relax into them, be held by them. There is no need to hold yourself up; let yourself be supported. Keep breathing and releasing any tension in your body.

Now. See, standing in front of you, the little child that you once were. What is the impact on you of seeing this part of yourself?

Notice everything about your child. How is he dressed? How does his face look? Happy? Sad? Are you happy to see him? Does he seem happy to see you? Will he look you in the eye? Do you feel comfortable seeing him?

Notice everything about your child.

Now. Just inside yourself, ask your child if there is anything he wishes to tell you. Listen carefully to make sure you hear what he says.

Now. Is there anything you wish to tell your child?

Talk and listen as much as necessary until everything has been said. Is there anything your child needs from you? Is there anything you need from your child?

The birds seen at first by the children were sacred birds, a harmonious beauty of truth, virtue and beauty.
⚘ MASANOBU FUKUOKA

Now. Just inside yourself, ask your child if she will give you a hug. If the answer is yes, hold your arms out in front of you (actually do this), pick your child up and bring her to you and hold her tight. Let your arms go around yourself and hold yourself tightly.

Let yourself feel this hug. Relax into it. Feel what it is like to hold this part of yourself so closely. Has it been too long since you gave yourself this kind of caring?

Now. Is there anything else you need to say to your child? Anything your child needs to say to you?

Let yourself be with this experience as long as you need or want to. Then, when you are finished, thank your child for hugging you and for coming to see you. It is always important to honor your child for helping you. Then, when you are ready, for now, say goodbye.

We give a good deal of attention to the wonder of the growth of the mind of a child, but it seems to me that the wonder does not cease with childhood.
⚘ LUTHER BURBANK

In the Western world, especially in the United States, we are often taught to repress this part of us. It is a part of ourselves that feels very deeply and is very sensitive to the emotional nuances in the world. Reclaiming it from the bag in which it has been for so long is essential to this work. For there is no part of us that is more accessible to the field of the heart, no part that has a greater capacity to feel deeply.

Many people can have difficulty reclaiming this part of themselves. If you imagine a close friend whom you failed to meet three or four times in a row for a lunch date, you can imagine the kinds of feelings that might exist in a part of you closeted away for fifteen or twenty years. Sometimes it takes a great deal of work to reestablish communication, even more to reestablish trust. This part does not respond well to demands or threats, but will often respond to promises, especially if they are kept. (Usually you will have to do something in exchange. It is very important that you do it if you agree to.) It is worth the work it takes to make friends with this part of you again.

Opening the door to this part of you opens the door to reconnection to the world and all the subtle meanings within it. I often suggest that people do this exercise daily for at least a year. This part of yourself will tell you everything that is going on inside you, everything you deeply need. It will also tell you much about the world around you. It truly is possible to become your own best friend.

It is not necessary to tell a child, “This is wood sorrel. It looks like clover, but it’s not.” A child does not understand and has no need for botanical knowledge. Teach a child that clover is a green manure plant and that pearlwort is a medicinal herb useful for treating diabetes and the child will lose sight of the true reason for that plant’s existence. All plants grow and exist for a reason. When we tie a child down with petty, microcosmic scientific knowledge he loses the freedom to acquire with his own hands macrocosmic wisdom. If children are allowed to play freely in a world that transcends science, they will develop natural methods of farming by themselves.
⚘ MASANOBU FUKUOKA

There is a reason why Luther Burbank, George Washington Carver, Helen Keller, and a great many indigenous plant peoples were all said to be like children.

EXERCISE 5: THE INFANT

The integrity of a structure is compromised and perhaps made unsafe, if any portion is degraded or removed. It is the same with a person or ecosystem. The health of people or places increases with the diversity of their expression..
⚘ JESSE WOLF HARDIN

Sometimes it is helpful to make a tape recording of this exercise—just as you did the last one—and play it back. Instead of following the gender pronouns that I use in the exercise, use the correct pronoun for whichever gender you are. If you practice you will find the perfect speed, pitch, and intonation for yourself to listen to.

Sit someplace comfortable. Someplace you won’t be disturbed. Someplace you feel safe and nurtured.

Close your eyes and take some deep breaths. Fill up your lungs as if they were balloons, fill them to bursting. Hold it, hold it, hold it. Then . . . slowly . . . release. As you let out the air in your lungs, let any tension you feel inside you release and flow out with your breath. Do this again . . . several times.

Begin with your toes, then your ankles, your knees. As you exhale each breath let the tension in this part of your body flow out. Do this with each major part of your body, ending with your neck, face, and head.

Now. Imagine the floor or chair under you as two huge, cupped hands holding you. Let yourself relax into them, be held by them. There is no need to hold yourself up; let yourself be supported. Keep breathing and letting any tension in your body go.

See, lying on the floor in front of you, the little baby that you once were. What is the impact on you of seeing this part of you?

Notice everything about the baby. How is she dressed? How does her face look? Happy? Sad? Are her eyes open? Or closed?

Are you happy to see her? Do you feel comfortable seeing her? Does she seem happy to you? Is your baby moving? Is your baby breathing? What is the color of your baby’s skin? Does your baby seem healthy? Or unhealthy? Is she getting enough food to eat?

Notice everything about your baby.

keep breathing

Now. When you are done noticing everything about your baby, reach down (really do this) and pick your baby up. Hold her to your chest as you would hold and cuddle any baby, let her nestle in. Feel what it is like to hold this part of yourself so closely.

Now. Even if you are a man, begin breast-feeding your baby. Allow the food from inside you to flow out and into this most vulnerable part of you. Is a nurturing happening now that has been too long absent? How long has it been since you comforted and took care of this most vulnerable part of yourself?

How do you feel doing this?

Now. As you are holding and feeding your baby, notice: is there anything your baby needs from you? Anything it wants you to do? And, as well, is there anything you need from your baby?

In a little while it will be time to stop. But before you do, is there anything you need to say to your baby? Is there anything else your baby needs from you?

Let yourself be with this experience as long as you want to. Then, when you are finished, look at your baby, allow the caring inside you to flow out and into her until she is filled up with it. And, when you are ready, thank your baby for coming to be with you, and, for now, say goodbye.

How can we expect to understand Nature unless we accept like children these her smallest gifts?
⚘ HENRY DAVID THOREAU

This tiny, vulnerable part of us is one that is often put in the bag of shadow. It is a part of us that is helpless and needs a special kind of food. This part of us is also very important, for it knows how to suckle at the breast of the world, to take that food into itself. And this part of you is very very sensitive to emotional fields and their communications. For this part of you is the one that developed within the electromagnetic field of your mother’s heart. And it knows those fields as intimately as it knows anything.

There [in Nature] I can walk, and recover the lost child that I am without any ringing of a bell.
⚘ HENRY DAVID THOREAU

Infants have no words, as you might have discovered—they perceive in feeling-gestalts—but that is all right, the child you met first knows lots of words. And, if you ask for his or her help, that older child is often willing to act as an interpreter.

You can repeat this exercise, if you wish, with any developmental age you have lived through, from infancy to two, to four, to eight, to adolescence, young adulthood, middle age, and so on. Each has its own intelligence, its own special connection with the world. Developmental stages do not stop at twelve or sixteen; the child naturally grows to forty. . . and to eighty. It is possible to remain filled with feeling and wonder and openness at any age. Each age has its own teachings. Each is a unique developmental stage of a human being’s growth. Each brings special perceptions and capacities that aid in the experience of the human condition.

EXERCISE 6: THE BODY

[The followers of science] have failed to restore to the human spirit its ancient right to come face to face with Nature.
⚘ GOETHE

Sit someplace comfortable. Someplace you won’t be disturbed. Someplace you feel safe and nurtured.

Close your eyes and take some deep breaths. Fill up your lungs as if they were balloons, fill them to bursting. Hold it, hold it, hold it. Then . . . slowly . . . release. As you let out the air in your lungs, let any tension you feel inside you release and flow out with your breath. Do this again . . . several times.

Begin with your toes, then your ankles, your knees. With each exhale of breath, let the tension in this part of your body flow out. Do this with each major part of your body, ending with your neck, face, and head.

Now. Imagine the floor or chair under you as two huge, cupped hands holding you. Let yourself relax into them, be held by them. There is no need to hold yourself up; let yourself be supported. Keep breathing and letting any tension in your body go.

Now. See standing in front of you your lungs. Notice their shape, their color. How healthy do they seem to you? Do they seem happy? Or sad? Mad? Or scared?

Let your gaze focus on them until they come truly alive in front of you. What feelings do you have about your lungs? Let these feelings grow in intensity until they are all that you feel.

What part of your lungs stands out most clearly to your gaze? What is it about this part that is demanding your attention? What does it need from you?

Is there anything your lungs need from you? Anything you need from your lungs?

Do this until you can look at your lungs without any discomfort.

Now. Repeat this with your heart, your gastrointestinal tract, and your skin—or with any organ that seems to need your attention.

Do this until you can look clearly at any organ within you and see it from multiple points of view. Do this until you have established a communication with all your organ systems, until you feel comfortable with each of them.

EXERCISE 7: ORGAN SYSTEMS

The fragrance of that knowledge! It penetrates our thick bodies, it goes through walls
⚘ KABIR

Go someplace public in which you can relax and stay for a while, someplace you like. Someplace where lots of people are coming and going. An outdoor mall is a good choice. (Indoor malls are terrible for this because of the feeling-tones they generally possess).

When you are settled, let yourself relax and begin to look at the people around you. Let your eyes be drawn to whichever person most catches your attention. Now. What part of his body are you most drawn to? Let yourself focus on this part of the body and, when you are ready, let your gaze drop down below this part into the organ system underneath.

How does it look to you? Healthy or unhealthy? How does it feel: mad, sad, glad, or scared? Let yourself practice seeing deeper in this way with as many people as you want to.

Repeat this often, until you can drop down into organ systems in other people more easily.

EXERCISE 8: GOING DEEPER INTO THE HUMAN WORLD

How few are those who feel themselves inspired by what is really visible to the spirit alone!
⚘ GOETHE

Repeat exercise 1. Go to the same places. However, ask your child to be present with you this time, perhaps standing beside you and invisibly holding your hand. Let yourself relax and really begin to see and feel the store you are looking at once again. How does it feel to you today? Remember everything you know about it.

Now. Ask your child how he or she feels about this store. What part of the store feels best to your child? What part does she like most? Ask your child to tell you everything she feels and notices about the store. Spend as much time as your child needs in order to hear everything that she has to say. Are there any differences from when you went alone to the store? What are they?

Now. Ask your infant to come. Hold your infant in your arms. How does your infant feel about this store? Notice everything that your infant does in the presence of this place. Ask your child what your infant is feeling if you have difficulty figuring it out.

Go to at least one more place that you went the first time you did this exercise and repeat this with both your child and infant. What are your child’s feelings and perceptions? What are your infant’s feelings and perceptions? Which place do they like better? Why? When you are ready to stop, make sure that before you do, you thank your child and infant for helping you.

EXERCISE 9: GOING DEEPER INTO PEOPLE

Not by constraint or severity shall you have access to true wisdom, but by abandonment, and childlike mirthfulness.
⚘ HENRY DAVID THOREAU

Now, repeat exercise 2. Take your child with you again. Once you are settled, ask your infant to join you. How do they feel about this place? Do they like it or not? Why or why not? Does it feel different to you with them here?

When you are settled and comfortable, begin looking at people again. Pick the one that your child is most interested in. Have him tell you everything he perceives about that person. Does he like the person or not? Why or why not? Notice, too, once your child is finished, how your infant seems in the presence of the person. How does your infant feel about this person?

When you are done, have your child pick someone else. If he is willing, have him choose someone he is uncomfortable with. Ask your child to tell you why. What is it about that person that is uncomfortable? Have your child go into as much detail as possible.