I feel kind of disappointed with myself for not having blogged for so long. There have been several points in the past couple of months that I could have blogged about something, but I instead chose to record it in my journal so that maybe I could get a better handle on it. But more times than not I never even wrote in my journal. I chose to write nothing because the act of writing my thoughts interferes with the thought process itself. So dear reader … how few of you that may actually be out there, I apologize for not writing very much. I apologize for ferreting some my own things for myself and not for you the reader to witness. So here is my checkin for what’s been happening in the past couple of months.
I had been much more aware of a physical pain in my physical heart. If anything I would have described as a noticeable weakness or vulnerability in the center of my heart. But more recently the condition was exacerbated when I went to a Taiko drumming workshop. After 5 minutes of drumming I was stunned. my arms were a little achy, but I was breathing hard, and my heart muscles were sore! I had always attributed such a sensation to my heart getting a good work out. But for only 5 minutes of beating on a drum, something that is overall less taxing then running hard on a treadmill, I was kind of disturbed. I thought “I’m really out of shape.” But it wasn’t the “I’m going to look overweight, fat and flabby” kind of out of shape. No this time it felt more like “I’m going to get a heart attack and die” kind of out of shape. I’m not being sarcastic. I’m nearing 46 and its always been around the late 40s and early 50s that relatives in my family have suffered from some kind of life threatening cardiac related disorder and so the risk factor is very real for me.
I did more research on the internet on the topic of heart fatigue. The general answer was there was no such thing as heart muscles getting fatigued and tired. Heart muscles should be capable of working forever. If a heart muscle starts to feel fatigue heart damage is considered. And the idea of heart damage did resonate with me. But just the same there still exists the general voice that exists that the goal of an aerobic exercise is to make your heart work harder to make it stronger. So some level of heart fatigue would seem to be a good thing.
So I concluded that I was out of shape and needed to get back into some minimum level of aerobic exercise. So the day after I went Taiko drumming I went out on a short run around a local school track. I recall finishing the run with a slight asthmatic reaction to the cold outdoor weather combined with possibly some air pollen. Then I came back home and within an hour both my eyes were swollen and blown out red with an extreme allergic reaction. It was very severe and frightening. But I bring this up because I somehow want to connect this to my heart’s condition.
The center of my heart was feeling a definite and profound ache. And as I write this blog entry it’s now becoming clearer that something there really wanted my attention. My deep attention. Not just a general feeling, but many hours of deep, careful and precise attention. I felt my heart tissue was indeed damaged, in fact slightly perforated so that it was steadily hemorrhaging blood.
So I spent a couple of hours trying to carefully and accurately draw how my heart was feeling and drawing how the blood was hemorrhaging. I was very attentive on accurately drawing how it felt. Below is my drawing.
And then after a day, you know what? … the bleeding sensation went away! The physical soreness, fatigue and ache in my heart went away. Not sure what more to say, except that the true healing is not in the attempts to fix something, but more just with that feeling, and honoring of that that feeling with an expression of art.
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