What Does Your Heart Need Right Now?

Tuning into my heart barely two weeks away from the election in the USA, my busy mind buzzes. Doom scrolling about Trump tangles my nervous system into knots which does nothing for my state of mind.

The chorus line in the background, gathers to murmur and fret about my current experience of chronic pain. This can easily lead me down the rabbit hole of despair.

Fortunately, I have practices. Time honored and entrenched (Thank Goodness for the ability to create new neural networks!)

Necessary breaks due to my living with Fibromyalgia that compel me, in order to function, to schedule into my day, mini mindfulness breaks.

Movement. Breathing. Releasing. Awareness.

From this arises, even from despair, even from physical and emotional pain, gratitude, hope and clarity.

Today, after the above practices, I inquire within, what does my heart need? My heart answered right away:  Time with Renee outside on the Ghost Town Trail.

Fortunately, this worked for Renee. I picked her up and we drove down windy country roads on a brilliant, bright, warm fall day.

Parking the car, we entered the trail entrance, leaving behind the numerous red, white and blue signs littering the landscape to enter into the majesty of fall.

We spoke of many things; our struggles, our joys, parenting adult children, election anxiety and Little Man, my (adorable) Japanese Chin who commands attention merely through his existence.

Eventually though, the landscape captures our attention. The autumn palate of Oak, maple, chestnut trees, various grasses and plant life as well as a meandering tributary of the Conemaugh River orient us towards wonder and awe. Renee, an accomplished calligraphy artist points out the bright yellow maple against the almost cerulean blue sky. Renee studies the ancient art of illuminated manuscript which used gold and silver to illuminate the text and accompanying illustrations. She shared that gold is always paired with blue in this ancient practice. She had a sense of connecting the dots around why perhaps the ancients made this a practice, in her own yard seeing the saturated golden leaves of a maple against the blue sky.

What does the heart need?

Perhaps a glimpse that the sacred around us fills us with a longing we seek to hold in art and music.

Perhaps the heart needs the cathedral of trees, meandering water, a dog and two friends sharing life for a while.