Brian Doyle wrote a wonderful book called The Wet Engine: Exploring the Mad Wild Miracle of the Heart. It was in this book that I learned a hummingbird, with its rapid heartbeat and two-year lifespan, has the same number of heartbeats a human has in a lifetime, and that at 5’ long, 4’ wide, 5’ high, weighing 400 pounds, the heart of the blue whale is the largest on the planet. The human heart weighs in at 10-12 ounces and is about the size of a fist.
“Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, what the heart can hold.” So said Zelda Fitzgerald whose heart, one imagines, experienced the gamut of emotions in her extraordinary and ultimately tragic lifetime.
Gratitude and wonder hold hands in the heart, wide-eyed and a little gap-mouthed, ready to be delighted and surprised at any moment. Stress and tension, handcuffed together, frequently lurk uninvited. Forgiveness fights fires. Grief, normally in chambers, engulfs when awoken. Favorite people wander the corridors, places and things take up space in different rooms. And yet, as Zelda suggested, the heart’s ability to expand and hold more is unknown but likely vaster than a blue whale’s heart.
When alert and not operating by rote, the heart possesses the extraordinary vision of a raptor seeing things in focus far and wide, making connections like the way the forces of darkness often push the better angels to prevail, and how the persecuted sometimes carve the path to compassion and change. It has the ability to hear like a moth, to float and flutter with the same grace. The heart feels best with arms widespread, guileless, loyal and loving as a child or a pet.
It truly has a mind of its own, which is in constant communication with the brain in our heads. When heart and head are in sync, we have greater mental clarity and intuitive ability. When the heart experiences emotions like compassion and appreciation, its rhythm becomes more coherent and harmonious. So next time you feel adrift, take a quick minute or two to listen to and follow your heart’s wise lead. She’ll get you where you need to be.
One of my uncle’s used to repeat some of his phrases, a diction tic that was endearing. Several years ago, driving my mom and I around San Francisco, he said to her, “Every day something new, right Mary?” And before she had a chance to respond, “Every day something new, right Mary?” I think about that often, because it still makes me smile, and because the simple truth of the statement applies, well, every day.
Distracted by the dreamy placid river, broody clouds deciding whether to unleash a storm, fighting an obsession, looking for a hawk, seeing only turkey vultures swooping and gliding, widening their circles, tasked with doing what none of us will, startled by a young buck at the edge of the road in the fog. Come here.
Every year or so, a friend and I go on a writing retreat. We like to be near the water in a peaceful, reflective setting. This year we found a quaint house on a small part of the bay where osprey and heron regularly do flybys and the water serves as a mirror for tall leafy trees in the morning.
Several two-story high trees were felled in the woods on the Palisades after Superstorm Sandy; their broad, shallow roots useless against hurricane force winds. A mile into a walk, the massive root ball of one of them faced me, a fallen warrior as majestic in death as in life, lying in state holding a shield decorated in a mesmerizing pattern of intertwined roots and dirt. As I paid my respects, like something out of a fable, the brave knight dared me to steal a heart-shaped stone the size of my fist from the center of his shield. I accepted the dare and slipped the stone into a pocket.
Wild heart, strap on your biker boots and take me places I would never dare. Reckless, guileless, bold and brave, tell the voices and distractions to get out of our way.
Take all the secrets and shame from the vault and lay them open on the altar of compassion where they will be burned with sage and sweet grass, then rinsed away with a tincture of holy water, lavender and mercy.
