Heart Fire

On an average day, my heart is diffuse. Not much to see there, and if I care to look, there'll be some kind of fog, with maybe some old charcoal in there, smudged and long burnt out. Occasionally, though, something would press against the big nugget in there, and the ashy exterior cracks and breaks, and something maroon and syrupy seeps through -- and whatever's inside there does not like the oxygen that's coming in. It feels like death, and disease, and horror. So I'm paralyzed in a panic, and the little dude living in there sends me lots of pictures and feelings about how I could stop this, how I could stop the seeping, what it needs in order to return to a state of stasis.

I've not been too enthused in the recent months about returning to stasis. I've been letting it bleed. I've been letting the oxygen in. It's been terrifying and I've felt invaded and bare and like I've been doing everything wrong. I've felt ashamed when people see the state I'm in. But I've refused to back down, to the best of my understanding and ability. I've let the oxygen penetrate. (Though I could say that I've not been interested in returning to stasis for years, it's just that in the last few months I've understood how to do it.)

Three days ago, I was at a party. Lots of young folks that I didn't know, and a few friends I did. I don't know what it was, but something caught fire in my heart. Heat and movement under that layer of coal. It felt terrifying, it felt uncontrollable -- it felt liberating. Light and heat were there, moving, driving, pulsing, living. Burning, too, but with joy.

I feel somewhat manic, like the flames are fluttering in there. But they're moving me -- the lights are on.

I feel great fear of meditation -- "Don't leave me in this! I don't want to feel the movement!" But I go to sit, and it's ordinary. Everything as it is. Just fluttering, sputtering, moving.

New Year's Eve, I went to the meditation group I go to, and we sat and practiced generating feelings of love and compassion. I'd never sat like that, though. We were a radio tower there, together. As I brought to mind people whose suffering I wished to breathe in -- friends, family, loved ones, and people braving war and protests -- it was communion. Their bodies were inside of mine, I felt what was in them, I breathed it in, and my body gave them back what would ease their pain, loneliness, fear, heat, cold, looseness, tightness. It was almost automatic -- no thought or consideration on my part, just the intention, and then vivid, living feelings in my body. And in a few cases, heart communion -- our hearts touched, and they shone gold. Sounds dumb, doesn't it? But it was nice. Very nice.

Yesterday I did a 5K run, and helped a great deal with whatever tasks needed doing. My heart is still racing. The sense of mania continues, though it has abated somewhat. But what joy! I felt such deep, deep joy, even as the pillars in my heart seem wobbly and weak. But there was something else there -- the light, the heat, the movement, the joy. There's life there. There's life here. I can't believe it, truly. It's incredible, and lovely, and intimate, and close.

This isn't a permanent kind of state -- what is? I'll be curious to see how it unfolds; the weakness here, too, needs oxygen, needs space, not tightness. I'm just surprised, very surprised, to be on this side of it. It'd just been charcoal and syrup for a long time -- so for the fire to be lit, wow. I forgot what it was like.

I doubt anyone today will notice what I'm calling the mania, but folks do seem to notice the light. Neat. Very neat.