How is Your Heart?
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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.
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T. Thorn Coyle
Hello friends, Well, it was another stressful week here in the US and some other parts of the globe. When things feel overwhelming, what is important to me is to connect with what is in my physical environment. I make my bed in the morning. I wipe the kitchen counters. I set things in order. What else do I do? I make sure I go for a walk, even when I have a pile of work to do that feels endless. It is on these walks that, not only do I notice my environment, but I also catch sight of how...
Hello friends, On an old garage somewhere in Southeast Portland, someone hand lettered a large message. The bulk of it reads “Matter would not have become us if it doubted our ability to change…” Now, on one hand it reads as the start of a philosophical discussion I would’ve engaged in during my teens or early twenties. On the other hand, though? Well, it made me pause and snap a photo, didn’t it? Photo: Garage wall message: “Matter would not have become us if it doubted our ability to...
Hello friends, While walking out of an ice cream shop yesterday, I saw a faded scrap of fabric stapled to a utility pole. People had stuck their old wood ice cream spoons into holes in the pole around the fabric, creating a mini art and sculpture installation. I recognized the fabric, of course, as being an old piece from local artist Shanalee Hampton. I have several of her embroidery pieces hanging in our home, having been introduced to her work by outdoor installations just like this one....