How is Your Heart?
|
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.
|
T. Thorn Coyle
Hello friends, We’re in the midst of a glorious false spring here in Portland, Oregon. Crocuses are blooming, and plum trees and daffodils are showing small buds. The air is cool and fresh, the sun shines, and yesterday, a small red finch scoped out the front porch of our 108 year old home, seeing if there’s a good spot to nest. Finches nested on our porch a couple of years in a row a few years back. Seeing that finch lifted my heart. Seeking a place to nest is a sign of hope. There is a...
Hello friends, While on a walking break from the writer’s conference I taught at last weekend, I paused to snap a picture of a wall mural. It was advertising something—toasted English Muffins, I believe—and showed a mountain scene, with trees, lake, and sky, and people entertaining each other with song around a campfire. But besides the incongruity of such a beautiful scene marketing a breakfast bread, it was the message that stopped me: “Wake up to what’s possible.” What's Possible mural by...
Hello friends, We had one of our rare snow days here in Portland, Oregon. When snow arrives here, it stays for a week at the most. This week’s storm lasted for all of twenty-four hours. That sort of snow is a pleasure to walk in, and a pleasure to watch from the warmth and comfort of our 108 year old home. Others are not so fortunate, I know. Before the storm hit, our household contributed to a hotel fund for some folks who live on the street. And, as the temperatures reached freezing in the...