My marriage of 7 years just ended because my wife gave her phone number to a guy at a grocery store she felt a connection to. This man is the same man who almost broke up our marriage a year ago. My heart told me to end it then. My mind did not. My mind told me to stay because it didn't want to deal with the truth. Too much to lose. The mind doesn’t like losing.

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The heart, on the other hand, understands loss is a part of life and often a healthy one. My heart knew my marriage was over. My heart kept whispering to me to end it, that she didn't love me anymore. My mind told me not to. A year ago, I listened to my mind, but when I found out recently about her renewed contact, I listened to my heart. This time I listened to the quiet voice of the heart, that not only communicated to my mind to end it, but that after I heal I will find a loving and kind woman to connect with on a deeper and truthful level.

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No matter what happens in our lives, whether it’s rejection, loss, disappointment, betrayal or something else, we must always, always listen to the heart and the messages it subtly speaks. But how do you know the difference between what the heart is saying and what the mind is saying? How do you know what the mind tells you you're feeling and what the heart really feels, instead?

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Here are 7 suggestions that will help you understand the language of the heart:

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1. First, do some research on the heart. I suggest reading books about the heart, like The Heart's Code by Paul Pearsall and an anthology called Handbook for the Heart, edited by Richard Carlson and Benjamin Shield.

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2. Make a decision to be open to your heart and then do some writing to get in touch with your heart. Ask your heart questions. Ask your heart what it wants you to know right now. Be open to the answers. Don't let the ego or the mind distract you from this experience. You are on a path of spiritual growth and getting in touch with your heart is part of this process.

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3. Meditate to quiet your mind. What you are doing is allowing your mind to rest so you can be in touch with your spirit, which I'm convinced resides in the heart. Here are some good books to start with: Meditation by OSHO, Instant Meditation For Stress Relief by John Hudson, and Meditation Made Easy by Lorin Roche.

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4. When something happens in life that the mind perceives as negative, ask your heart how it perceives the same event, and be open to the answer. You will be surprised by what it says. Be open to listening to the heart's response, instead, that doesn't know contradiction. Talk to your heart. Listen to the answers.

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5. Make the decision to be aware. Be aware of your thoughts, of the energy around you, of nature, of your reactions to life's events. When you are aware, you are opening your heart. And part of being aware means you must quiet that voice of your mind. In your awareness, acknowledge its presence but listen to your heart.

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6. Trust in the quiet voice of your heart. Treat your heart with respect. Talk to your heart. Get to know your heart.

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7. Finally, ask yourself how something feels before you analyze it with your mind. Then ask yourself this: What is the true feeling behind the reaction? In my opinion, there are two types of feelings and one is not real. The feeling that is perceived as real but that is not real, is the one your mind creates. This feeling is a falsehood. The heart is the only true test of knowing how something feels. You will often find the heart's voice when you are in trancelike states, like when you are driving, taking a shower, gardening, hiking in nature, swimming or meditating. Pay attention to the voices that come during those times.

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Ending my marriage was one of the best things I have ever done for myself. My heart guided me and is still helping me to understand the hurt I feel because of my wife's betrayal. But my heart also told me not to blame her, not to be angry anymore at what happened, that I was at fault too, that we drifted apart and changed, that the life path once shared was not to be shared anymore. I'm still healing but my heart says I will be fine, that now I have the freedom to create a life based on my heart's true vision. A life surrounded by what makes me happy, a life of joy and appreciation, of love and respect, and fulfillment.

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Jody Helfand has over 50 publications in poetry and prose. He has an MFA in Creative Writing and an MA in English and has been teaching English and writing for over 15 years. His first book of poems, Places Male And Female, can be found on http://www.poeticapublishing.com/ . His second book, But How Did They Live?, about the Holocaust, will be published in February 2011. Visit his website at http://www.jodyrosehelfand.com/  . - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

I have a mental illness. I was practically born with it: at five I went to my first psychiatrist; at thirteen I was diagnosed with Major Depression and placed in a hospital; at twenty-one my illness “blossomed” and I was rediagnosed with bipolar schizoaffective disorder. (For those curious, bipolar refers to moodiness and schizoaffective refers to mild hallucinating.) Normally illness is not what inspires my work, but in the case of my work in progress, The Bible According to Eve, the original idea was inspired by a hallucination I had.

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In a sense it was even embedded in the location where I was. I was working as a volunteer at a club for the mentally ill. My job was to teach students math and English at the remedial level. I had a college degree and it was clear from the first that I was “high functioning” and able to help ones who were not-so-high-functioning.

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One day, however, I was hallucinating too badly to work and one of the things I “saw” was myself as Eve with a male friend in a “Garden” being harassed by Ahair. Why Ahair? Well, in the Talmud, there was a rabbi named Elisha ben-Avuyah. One day he saw a young boy in a tree brushing the birds away from the eggs in their nest in order to bring them down to his aged and crippled father. Then the boy fell from the tree and died. The rabbi then became Ahair, an ardent atheist. So Ahair entered my own personal mythology.

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Haunted by my hallucination with its bogeyman of a less sympathetic Ahair, I wrote a poem. I remember the hallucination to remember that I had an abiding sense that Ahair must be visiting me for some sin, although I knew that wasn’t real.

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We discovered a land of

dark colors, of blood reds and

deep greens of the same shades as

pine needles on trees throughout

the year, from flowering to

snow burying life itself—

but leaving the leaves in tact.

There was a pomegranate tree

that we were told not to pick

and eat fruit from its branches

that grew deep within Eden,

in which we basked in chastely

as children, yet still bound by

the wrists as before we’d been

in the cave of dark Ahair.

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This poem led to a larger project: a woman’s Bible with one poem for each woman or reference to a woman in the Bible, which in turn led to another project.

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I had heard in a class a long time ago that, when they tell their stories, women talk in terms of relationships while men talk in terms of accomplishments. One section that I found intriguing while working on my Bible project early on was the relationships between Jacob’s wives and concubines, Leah, Rachel, Zilpah and Bilhah. I used the four of them as vehicles to write about polygamy. In working on women in the Torah, I tried to think in terms of relationships. Inspired by that, I wrote this:

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As a child Joseph carried rumors

of the sons of his stepmothers, maids

and concubines of their spouse Jacob.

He told his father that they complained

of Jacob as a lecherous fool,

egged on by their own mothers, who laughed

that behind Jacob’s back that it was

the once shy Leah who kept the tents

as managed as they were while the maids

kept it clean while the love-lorn Jacob

would wander, lost in his self-pity

which he said was grief because he lost

his one love, Rachel, and could only

thank God that he still had young Joseph…

through Joseph… [Father Jacob] learned of

poor Reuben’s indiscretion with ‘her,’

sad Bilhah, who would have been stoned by

the angry Jacob had not Leah

come between the two of them, and so

proved Leah had since her youth become

quite formidable, unyielding and

as uncompromising towards Jacob as

the power within ‘his’ tents as she

had continued her wrathful struggle

with the dead Rachel, lovelier in

the grave than she had been in her life.

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Thanks for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Jennifer Alderson, Guest Blogger

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Jennifer Alderson was born in Topeka, KS in 1978. She moved at age eight to Wichita,  finished high school at East High and went on to Friends University. In between starting and finishing school in 2001, Jenny started what would be an unusually long conversion process to Judaism from her original Protestant faith, converting eventually with a rabbi ordained both Orthodox and Conservative. Although she attends both Reform and Orthodox synagogues, she considers herself Conservative. She is a writer and poet whose work has been published in Poetica Magazine and Mim'amakim. She is presently working on her book The Bible According to Eve. - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

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I work as a part-time writing resource teacher in a public elementary school. A big part of my job involves talking to students about their writing. Among other things, we discuss confusing sentences, dangling plot lines, bland descriptions, and left-out details important to the reader’s understanding of the story.

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Here’s an example of a conference with a student I will name David:

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Me: “What’s going to happen with your main character? How will he change?”

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David: “He’s going to get superpowers!”

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Me: “How?”

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David: “He steps in goo. The goo is radioactive and it gives him super hearing, super vision, super speed, etc….”

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I look at David’s story. It says the main character “stepped in some goo” during a walk in the woods. After that, he goes home. There is no description of the goo or radioactivity. The main character doesn’t even notice the goo on his shoe. The reader has no hint that something life-changing has occurred.

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“Tell us more about the goo,” I say. “It’s important.”

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David agrees and picks up his pencil to revise.

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Another example comes from a student I’ll call Elliott. His story begins with the line, “Attention! All the experiments have escaped from the lab.”

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Elliott reads his first paragraph and excitedly tells me that the first lines of dialogue are being delivered through a screen in a video chat.

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“Did you tell the reader that?” I ask.

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“No,” Elliott says, “but I can.”

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Both Elliott and David have made a mistake I’ve made in my own writing. I call it “forgetting the reader.” As a writer, I know all the necessary background material and character motivation for my story. However, sometimes I forget to share it, especially when I write on Jewish themes. I am fortunate to belong to a writing group with writers of different faiths who will remind me that non-Jewish readers won’t necessarily know that Rosh Hashanah begins at sundown or that blessings are said over apples and honey. I need to explain such things so my reader won’t be confused. A few months ago, while I was working on a picture book manuscript, my writing group pointed out that I didn’t tell the reader my story began the day before Rosh Hashanah. Since this was crucial to the plot, it was a serious mistake that I was grateful my critique group caught.

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As I work with students, I freely admit that sometimes I need others to tell me when I have forgotten my reader. And when I sit down at the computer to write, I often hear my own voice asking a student, “Is that clear to the reader?” Teaching can be a good reminder to take my own advice.

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Thanks for Reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Jacqueline Jules, Guest Blogger

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Jacqueline Jules is an award-winning children’s author and poet. Her books include The Hardest Word, The Princess and the Ziz, Abraham’s Search for God, Sarah Laughs, Benjamin and the Silver Goblet, and the recently released, Miriam in the Desert. For more information, please visit www.jacquelinejules.com.  - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

Our children come to us factory installed with a remarkable set of natural endowments: a need for self-expression, lots of physical energy, and an extraordinary imagination. But guess what? Isn’t this the very same arsenal needed and used by the mature artist? Certainly this is so in sculpture, dance and dramatic arts, with mental energy overriding the physical in writing and painting. The connection between the natural attributes of childhood and the mature shaping of those attributes toward artistic productivity is not surprising. But add to this the extraordinary brain activity that takes place in childhood: multiple billions of neurons each of us is born with and multiple trillions of synapses, the wires that enable brain cells to communicate with each other, enough to learn just about anything. Moreover, the brain makes brand new neural connections among them all the time. Of course this is daunting. But isn’t it thrilling as well?

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Experience of the world in the early years is largely gained through the senses—vision, hearing, smell, touch and taste—and perception is enhanced with artistic enterprises that connect one thing to another. Arts such as creative dance allow the child to incorporate all three of those natural endowments mentioned (physical energy, need for self expression and imagination) while using and reinforcing synaptic brain connections. Drawing (scribbling by the age of 2 years) allows the young child to control and master space and motivates experimentation on the page—and while you’re at it, add markers, clay, some creative construction materials and the sounds of classical music. Behind all of these endeavors is the promotion of self-confidence, the basic necessity for achievement.

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As parents or educators our duty is to shape those endowments and use that brainpower by encouraging perception of the outside world and the mental stimulation that follows. Sadly but inevitably, these remarkable connections decline depending on environmental adaptation needs and the mental stimulation a child receives. When connections are used, they are reinforced; otherwise, they are weakened or discarded.

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As an artist and parent, before there were PET scans and peeks inside the brain, and largely, I confess, to keep my children out of mischief, I set up a studio table for them, provided some basic art materials, gave them some direction and then did my own thing. I also taught creative movement and in doing so, made the discovery that all children seemed to be gifted creative artists. This discovery led to my book, Leap to the Sun: Learning through Dynamic Play, and later to another, Smart Starts in the Arts. Whether this early exposure helped my children’s intellectual and emotional development can’t be proven, but all four of them are now leading happy, productive lives and contribute to society in their respective careers.

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Although neural connectivity is greatest in early childhood, another surge occurs in adolescence, which may account for what is seen as adolescent rebellion and general teenage weirdness. All the more reason to build a foundation in early childhood in the arts, sports or academics. Then, with self-confidence and a fascination with the world, those neural adolescence energies will have a natural boost to lift off into mature achievement.

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The good news for those somewhat older than teenagers? This “Brain-Art Connection” can continue at any age. Brain cells can rejuvenate and synaptic connections continue to be made throughout life.

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Thanks for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Judith Peck, Ed.D., Guest Blogger

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     * Recommended viewing: “The Secret Life of the Brain,” 2001,  

     Thirteen/WNET New York, distributed by PBS Home Video  

      www.pbs.org, and Inside the brain: revolutionary discoveries of how 

      the mind works by Ronald Kotulak

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Dr. Judith Peck is a sculptor, author and full professor of art at Ramapo College of New Jersey in Mahwah, NJ. In addition to sculpture and drawing, she teaches Art as Therapy and trains students to teach art in jails, mental hospitals, facilities for abused children, battered women’s shelters, and veteran centers. She is the author of Smart Starts in the Arts, Art Activities for Mind and Imagination, Artistic Crafts, Leap to the Sun: Learning through Dynamic Play, and Sculpture as Experience all of which are available at www.iapbooks.com. (Poetica subscribers are invited to use the discount when ordering). Her sculpture can be viewed at www.judithpeck.com - Linda Pressman, Blog Editor

The English seminar I designed for the boarding school in which I teach, Strange Literature, has been attracting a steady flow of seniors. A “strange” title? Well, the syllabus offers no Sci-Fi, let alone Fantasy with its frequent adjunct Horror. What I intended was to teach selected books with a unique slant toward life and which had a unique writing style.

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I open the course with a pair of short story opposites. Raymond Carver offers a Minimalist style and a somber survivalist look at life. “In the kitchen, he poured another drink and looked at the bedroom suite in his front yard. The mattress was stripped and the candy-striped sheets lay beside two pillows on the chiffonier. Except for that, things looked much the way they had in the bedroom.” (Why Don’t You Dance?) On the other hand, John Updike is one of our most ornate fiction writers in the 21st century. “The woods at their distance across the frosted lawn were a Chinese screen in which an immense alphabet of twigs lay hushed; a black robe crusted with white braid standing of its own stiffness.” (Crow in the Woods) Both men are able to look deeply into character and motivation. If their plots seem truncated, their intent is to show life is like that, often unfinished and unexplained.

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One of my non-fiction choices is an autobiography by Stephen Kuusisto. The premise of this book, as Kuusisto states late in the plot development, is that he was a blind man for the first thirty-six years of his life who pretended to see so he could be accepted into “normal” society. His encounters are hair-raising. “One of the fellows lifts me to my feet, spins me around. He’s talking spitfire cartoon gibberish. ‘What the. . .how the. . .didn’t you. . .waddya BLIND?’ I have concrete in my hair and beard. It hangs from my shirt like pelts strung around a fur trapper. ‘Yessir.’ “ (Planet of the Blind).

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Again using short fiction, I conclude the course with a duet of foreign writers. Poland’s Isaac Singer mystifies while making the students guffaw. “I don’t think myself a fool. On the contrary. But that’s what folks call me. They gave me the name while I was still in school. I had seven names in all: imbecile, donkey, flax-head, dope, glump, ninny, and fool. The last name stuck.” (Gimpel the Fool) His shtetl characters are full of life, and the plot is often rambunctiously outlandish. Luis Borges brings the world of South America alive. Since he is the forerunner of Magic Realism, I try to choose stories that feature a more concrete rather than abstract premise. “With a gesture, he asked them to wait and turned his face to the wall, as if to resume his sleep. Did he do it to arouse the pity of those who killed him, or because it is less difficult to endure a frightful happening than to imagine it and endlessly await it.” (The Waiting)

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Some of my students have been greatly moved by these books. One student wrote a very emotional essay inspired by Planet of the Blind, because he could see parallels to his brother with muscular dystrophy. Another boy could relate to the brutality in the neighborhood that Carver writes about. Someone finally spoke for him. Still another student was made more environmentally aware by reading Lopez’s Desert Notes, then on his own River Notes. If I could put my finger on the specific area in which I was influenced by this unique literature, I would note that I write more freely and more associatively now, as in this poem:

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WAITING FOR THE WORD

Through the filth, degradation,

pain, an inmate of Auschwitz

waits for the right word;

surrounded by light and wine

and camaraderie

the poets speak of

jazz, existentialism,

humor late into the night.

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The victim waits and nods

waits and nods until

almost offhandedly

he hears the word Hope

and his ancient soul sleeps;

the poets not knowing

what they have contributed

to the world beyond.

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Thanks for reading JWorld Café, the Poetica Magazine Blog

Ray Greenblatt, Guest Blogger

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Ray Greenblatt’s poetry has appeared in America, International Poetry Review, Midwest Quarterly. His reviews have been published in Drexel Online Journal, English Journal, Joseph Conrad Today. His latest book Leavings of the Evening was published by Foothills Press.