The heart is a "flood" subject for me. I will be returning to it again and again. A dream awhile back told me I was to reveal the structure of the heart like Kandinsky. Whew. I forgot it and Kandinsky for a number of years.
I was shattered. Having your heart broken by betrayal is a good primer. I remembered my dream. I remembered my heart. "I am not going to close down my heart." I did everything I could to love others, hear others, reach out to others...while unconsciously building a wall to protect myself from others. I know this because I am slowly and gently taking it down. It's been 5 years. It's my time. And I am also discovering shards, bricks that date back to childhood. It is scary, disorienting, and some days I don't know which way am I.
The wall is made up of frozen emotions, protective patterns for possible future pain, patterns of intellectual ideals, fears about being abandoned or hurt by people. Of course the list is longer and of course the wall may not completely fall down. But it is giving me more room to breathe, to love, and be freer.
What I have discovered is that the heart is a mysterious and dangerous place. You can get broken here, but you have to trust it and follow its flow. You have to let it navigate you. This is the difference between knowing and feeling. It will take you into scary, exotic, painful, joyful places that can be both unsettling and exhilarating at the same time. Meet you there. If my door is shut, just knock.
And a poem:
One Night
One night
In the middle of the night
I awoke.
I realized
I would be on the same path
fighting the same demons
even if I had not divorced.
Nothing is wasted.
Also, I love him.
I tried not to
for five years.
He was mean
He had hit me
He scared me
He left me.
To let go I remembered
all the bad he had done.
Tried to forget the good.
Now I forgive myself
for my ceaseless heart.
All I can write about now
is about my flesh.
It's all I have left—
Isn't that the case anyway?
For that is the place
where love circles.