Each day I’m drawn and quartered between the ruin, beauty, horror and possibilities of these times. Some consciousness is eluding us. How can we become responsible as individuals and a species for the global consequences of our behavior and technology? Mobilizing to meet each issue exhausts us. Our best theories and forms of government and governance fail us. Some entirely new thinking – heartstorming – is required.
HEARTSTORMING can only happen among us, that is in a circle, that is in a community. It begins by remembering, speaking by heart. Together we seek the intelligence of the heart. This is not linear or developmental, it is circular and resonant.
Heartstorming is a cordial process. The realized vision generously includes each and every being. Heartstorming is accountable to all beings. Within the heart there can be no enemy, although there may be heartache or even great heartbreak. Have the heartrending courage (heart) to apply compassion to each action. Heartstorming seeks what can be lived, is vital, passionate, strong, that which is hearty; the solutions hearten us. In the Medicine Wheel, the heart and hearth are aligned, are heartfelt. Seeking the intelligence of the heart, setting out from the heart, so much love flows to heighten possibility. Then, aligned with you in common, if too often uncommon, loving, the love to which you are also committed, flows back to us, encouraging (heart) us.
Thinking with the heart is a fierce practice and rigorous ethic. Challenge and test every great idea, every scientific discovery, every amazing invention, every brilliant insight, every brainy theorem and theory – their functions, methods, purposes and implications – through the wisdom of the heart. Thinking everything through wholeheartedly is a Way.
RUIN AND BEAUTY 
Hello Dear Deena.
I am so taken with the word heartstorming. It gives me language for the work I do with our beautiful and brave young urban school leaders. Yes, Thinking with the heart is a fierce practice and rigorous ethic. And acting from the heart is strategic and courageous.
Our work together that glorious weekend at Lynn and John’s 4 years ago — 4 years ago! — the profound question you posed the first night: What are you the Guardian of?, and our initial popcorn of responses — I’m the guardian of this…I’m the guardian of that, and the gradual yielding of brainstorming to heartstorming to discovery, continues to manifest through my work. Acknowledging and moving from the heart, poetry, and of course, Story — the power of their connection to their own stories and to the stories of others — all of it is slolwly coursing its way through the arteries of the network. Slowly and surely. With Gratitude and Love Dear Deena on your Birthday and Yom Kippur.
Linda
Dear Linda: i remember our meeting so very well. And the next meeting which was a prelude to this work you are doing now and for which you have been prepared your entire life. I will connect you with two people in Los Angeles at SANBI, who do similar work and hope to collect the real stories of 1000 elders in the Inner City, the guardians, we can say, of the past and so of the future, You are in my heart! Love, Deena