Do you wear your heart on your sleeve? Emotions can feel transparent as glass, yet I bet plenty lurks in your inner recesses.
I allowed a man to gaze deeply into my heart today. He was a doctor and I, a patient undergoing a scary heart test. I slipped Pablo Neruda’s “The Yellow Heart” in my bag on my way out the door. Fastened a necklace with the key to my heart to the nape of my neck. Just in case the doctor needed it . . .
Made my way to the Upper East Side. Chaotic Christmas tree carnage littered the city streets like dead bodies. Stepping amidst the curbed and discarded trees, I pondered my own mortality.
Thirty minutes later, fear of the test quickly turned to surprise. Peering inside the chambers of my heart, I expected to find the loves of my life, my husband’s lush lips, my beautiful sister or daughter swimming around. Instead, my heart looked alien, blood pulsated violently, horrific sounds permeating the room. How could this be inside of me? Inside of all of us?
In the waiting room, I’d looked at William O’Daly’s critique of Neruda’s gorgeous poem “Integrations” (see full poem at bottom of this post) where he states:
“By loving what and whom we truly love, we continue to transform ourselves and our passion for life. If we allow imagination to run to seed, or if our compassion and ability to love perish, we cease to live as full human beings. Instead, we live as sad and willing accomplices in our own demise. To choose not to live is a choice to die”
The Three of Swords Tarot card representc the collision of emotion (the heart) and thought (the swords). Those three painful swords on The Three of Swords occur when we talk or intellectualize ourselves into decisions that are against our nature. It wreaks havoc on our heart and potentially our lives.
O’Daly suggests to live fully, we must love “what and whom we truly love.” But what do you love? Heart knowledge is key. Sometimes our loves, our passions are forgotten, pushed aside or intellectualized away.
Forgetting what you truly love can occur in a number of ways; decisions based on fear, putting others needs before yours, or simply not paying attention. Scarily, you can sometimes talk yourself out what you love. The intellectually reasoning (swords) becomes a thought you actually believe.
The key to the Three of Swords card is to identify the thoughts that interfere with what we truly love. Thoughts that hinder action. By identifying and placing intention and action behind what we love, we remove our swords one at a time. We allow our thick rich, gooey blood to pulse happily and healthily.
Just like my heart, which by the way, turned out to be in excellent condition. Waa hoo! Now excuse me while I go hug my daughter and think about a few passions I may have talked myself out of . . .
Integrations
by
Pablo Neruda
After everything, I will love you As if it were always before As if, after so much waiting, Not seeing you And you not coming, You were breathing close to me forever.
Close to me with your habits, With your colour and your guitar Just as countries unite In school room lectures, And two regions become blurred And there is a river near a river And two volcanoes grow together.
Close to you is close to me And your absence is far from everything And the moon is the colour of clay In the night of quaking earth When, in terror of the earth, All the roots join together And silence is heard ringing With the music of fright
Fear is also a street And among its trembling stones Tenderness somehow is able To march with four feet And four lips
Since without leaving the present That is a fragile thing We touch the sand of yesterday And in the sea Love reveals a repeated fury
To discover how The Two of Swords affects you visit Sasha’s column at datingsymbol.com.
Comments