An old children’s necklace sits on the left side of my bathroom sink countertop. A worn-out elastic string of plastic, multi-colored beads and baubles, most of the necklace’s violet and soft red trinkets are the shape of tiny hearts. Although I like to arrange the string into the larger shape of a single heart, the contour of my design gets sufficiently ruffled and displaced such that regular adjustments are required. Sometimes I even have to lift the string into the air and start anew.
It’s a bit silly, I suppose. I know that the actual human heart, or the heart of any living thing, is not so even and symmetrical; a few notches and dents are probably more realistic than a smooth shape resting atop the countertop. Yet I must admit that I feel better, even slightly, when the necklace of faded curios takes the form of a more perfect heart. It reminds me of my children when they were younger, before the world demanded at least a modicum of desensitization from wonder and fantasy. It does the same for the young boy still alive within me, the one who secretly thrills at the possibility that there is more to life than is visible to the naked senses, that there is magic at work and play in our lives if we only seek and stay open to it.
This past week, one of my daily mindful exercises asked me to meditate on my possessions. Which ones were most important for me, today? Which ones would likely be most important for me in five years? I was walking in the evening heat while listening to the recording. So the first things that came to mind were my water bottle and my shoes. Sunglasses were helpful but, no, those weren’t vital. Oh, sure, I shouldn’t forget that recordings and materials I could listen to or read, those were valuable. As was the house that sheltered me, and the car that offered mobility. The rest of it? My list was rather short – especially when I was forced to consider what I found valuable through the lens of the physical possessions. However, everything on my surprisingly short inventory of top possessions evaporated like moisture in the desert air when I was next asked to consider what it was in my life that I most “treasured”. That list was quite different. It was the people I loved. And the memories of those who have died. It included my stumbling steps toward spiritual development. And the hope that some day, before my own death, I might better reach some higher state of enlightened being.
When asked the above questions, my internal replies did not take long to formulate; despite being buried beneath the debris of daily duties, what really matters burns bright in the realm of the soul. Ask the spirit – not the body or mind – about its priorities and the truth, when allowed to be shared freely, bursts like bright light from an unrecognizable source. But why had I been asked to uncover the treasures held closest within me? The recording offered the following: For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
My shoes traversing the rocky high desert soil, I let the line sink in. Where my treasure lays, there also will be my heart. Yes. The heart as metaphor, for compassion; as symbol, for love; as physical representation, for the “why” of life. The heart also as embodiment of feeling, the expression of purpose, the acknowledgment that what endures, beyond the factual summary of my activities over the decades or the details summarized by my curriculum vitae, is so much simpler, so much less amenable to categorization, so much more exposed and fulfilling.
Who sculpts the quotidian contours of the human heart? We do. You and me. Do we manage the heart as if it needs containment? Or do we release it, and ourselves, to the boundary-free experience of vulnerable being, of selfless love, of faith in the treasure of unity and integrated breath?
On the other side of my bathroom sink, just opposite to the children’s necklace, is a smooth stone that my wife gave me some years ago. The word “trust” is painted on the stone. I’ve positioned the stone atop another gift received from her, a square tile with the decorative inscription “I love you”. Until today, until just moments before I typed these words, I had focused on the word “trust” and the placement of the stone within the hand-painted flower at the center of the tile. It is beautiful. It symbolizes the power of commitment, of my wife’s love. Just now, however, I noticed something else inside the wonderful display of marital affection. On the stone, just beneath the word “trust”, is a small painted heart. Oh! The message on the stone is not just trust. It is trust heart.
Yes, I am blessed with the love of family; I must remember to trust in the love that I am given. But I am also blessed with the choice to trust my own heart and to trust the love that I am fortunate to be able to give others.
And that there, that right just there, is, perhaps, my greatest treasure. To think that it has been right before my eyes, in plain sight, for so long.
So well said!!