Heart Reading … Day 58
The heart never lies
I went to Provincetown today and want to say that the P in P-Town stands for Peace. The vibe of the community is so chill, so easeful. A tee-shirt walking by on a human said “the ocean fixes everything” which may explain the peace. But I believe that the peacefulness of P-Town arises more from the sexual liberation of the people of Provincetown than from the ocean herself. There are a lot of very uptight people that live by the ocean — in Cape Cod and in other coastal communities.
I took so many pictures here with my heart today, which is why I made a gallery of them for today’s heart reading. I dropped my heart after one photo and it got quite damaged. It was hand carved in Italy and I felt anger towards myself for trying to get a photo in a parking lot. I’d felt the imminent pressure of cars coming which caused me to rush and let the heart slip from my hand. My lovely life partner said the bumps and bruises just make my heart more beautiful.
Walking around today I reflected on my daily heart readings over the past couple of months: if I start writing about a theme that has been with me over the course of that day, it is easy for me to release feelings of fear, anger or sadness. But if I start with a heart reading, I write from a deeper wisdom that has an objective quality, an essential truth.
Turning a corner as we headed back towards our vehicle I noticed a gallery with lovely flowers and signage for an upcoming photo series featuring over 400 interviews within the trans community. This quote by Audre Lorde in the flyer resounded with my heart in a way that has me calling myself further inward:
“… and that visibility which makes us most vulnerable, is that which is also the source of our greatest strength.”
This sentiment, alongside one on a different tee-shirt on display in a store window — something to the effect of “don’t pay too much attention to me, I’m sensitive ” — helped me feel the tension between wanting to be seen and enjoying anonymity. The balance lies in a manageable level of co-stimulation mentally and emotionally. And what I am coming to appreciate with these heart readings is the sense of collaborating with (or at least attempting to serve) an energy that is not subject to the quantitative metrics we humans believe we need — like likes and follows and claps...
As I have said before in these heart readings, I am not afraid of being vulnerable — of putting myself “out there” or of being radically honest with others. I have practiced this enough to believe that I can meet anyone “where they are” in terms of their comfort level with vulnerability. I have had numerous experiences of being vulnerable with others and have positive expectation about having more of these experiences in the future.
I have also had bad experiences of feeling a particular kind of vulnerable — where my authority had been placed in the hands of another (say a doctor) and I felt emotionally injured in the process. I cannot think of another community of people who have been more emotionally injured than the LGBTQ community. It absolutely infuriates me that our sexuality — the essential nature of human intimacy — can become so divisive, so political, so traumatizing.
In an earlier heart reading, Day 45, I wrote:
“[imagine]…every member of the United States Congress throwing light and love to each and every other member of congress as well as each and every member of the media instead of the shade — and figurative rocks often thrown from their figurative glass houses.”
I dream of a day when we reach a tipping point of heart-centered leadership; a day when truth becomes right action, when leadership is trustworthy because their decisions make moral, social, and logical sense, when crazy-making “gaslighting” stops, when human dignity and true needs prevail over economic peer pressure, a day when we know unity and cooperation as beautiful as the heart knows to be possible.
