Have HeART

I've spent my winter break creating, making thoughtful, personal gifts for people in my life. I don't bring this up as a way of bragging, tooting my own horn and saying how awesome I am, especially considering the majority of people got/will get clone gift bags with homemade candy and a condom (free courtesy of the Sexual Awareness Center office where I work).

No, I bring up this act of creation because, as I was reminded in reading a letter from my friend Emerson, this is a form of heARTwork for me. HeARTwork so far as I know it is activism that comes from the heart and utilizes all the gifts we have to offer the world. It's speaking truth to power. It's genuine. It seeks to make a difference. And for the last few weeks for me, it's catharsis.

I feel hurt and heartbroken in a way I haven't for a few years now. I've had moments sitting in my apartment with only my roommate's cat for company, reading, where a word or a song played on shuffle on the other side of the room catches me off guard and next thing I know, I'm crying. In a sad way, it's kind of a beautiful thing, honestly. So beautiful.

And you probably wouldn't know it looking at me, I'm very good at projecting happiness. No, not projecting, projecting implies a level of falsity. It implies a covering up when this is a parallel. You probably wouldn't know it looking at me, because at the same time, I'm happy. Emotions are complicated, there isn't any kind of crazy paradoxical contradiction going on here.

There are days when I feel so big I could rival Walt Whitman. I am both the happiest and the saddest you will ever see. I am large, I contain multitudes: in this digital culture, I am multiplex, I exist on multiple planes and levels. I can project and be so many things simultaneously.

But I digress.

In the last few years I've been learning this practice of heART. It's a way of moving in the world that integrates art and action and love. You see it in spoken word poets at performing at rallies. You see it in youth workers pouring themselves into their service. Today I'm using this as a gift for my friends.

Much like the warriorship practice I wrote about yesterday, this is a matter of intention. HeART is a flourishing, is a fostering, is a cultivation.

Cultivate v. to improve and render fertile.

It is a service greater than ourselves gifted in something beautiful. A distinction that I might make is that it is additive, always seeking the greatest growth and joy. At times it might leave you feeling bare and reduced, insignificant and marginalized, but always with the seeds of power planted and ready to grow. To me, that's true heART.