Hello friends,

Take a deep breath. Tune into your body. How do you feel? Are you tired? Jumpy? Energized? Agitated? Exhausted?

All of the above?

Take another deep breath.

How is your heart?

I don’t even want to begin to assign possible markers for your emotional state, because the possibilities are so personal, always, but especially right now.

Some of us are alone. Some of us are caretakers. Some of us need care. Some of us are caregivers who also need care. Some of us are busy. Some don’t feel busy enough.

All of this, in the midst of world events, affects our emotional states, or what we call our hearts.

The physical heart is a muscle, of course. And muscles can feel strong or weak, vital or weary. Battered, bruised, or well cared for.

So… I suggest we all take another deep breath. Drop our attention to that space high up within our protective ribs. Perhaps place a hand gently there.

Breathe again. How is your heart?

And what does your heart need today? What is one way you can offer your heart what it needs?

I’ll close with this: Today, I feel grateful you are alive, out there somewhere, connecting with these words. We are in this together, us and our hearts. And as poet and psychologist Scherezade Siobhan writes: "We best rescue each other in daily heartbeats."

Best wishes - Thorn

My Kickstarter campaign for Resistance Matters: Essays on Love and Action launched on Tuesday. It's the only way to preorder this revised, expanded book of essays on our times.