Marked Out Heart

“Of course you know it isn’t going to be that easy,” the bees buzz. As I’d now shed my skin, they are free to fly around me for the first time. I am touched that they don’t make a big deal out of this, or berate me for hiding them from view. They seem to understand that our symbiosis is not an easy one for me.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Well, walking naked in the world is not easy for humans, never has been,” they explain. They are happy to let their wings buzz freely, and sit quietly on my shoulders, my skin as I walk.

“Humans who take such risks have been prone to ridicule and misunderstanding, and some have even been thrown into jail,” they say.

“I take your point my dear hive, but this is a different place, and my nakedness is more about the opening of my heart than anything else,” I say.

“We were just getting to that actually…don’t you think we know you by now?”

I wonder what they mean. It’s true, the bees have always been with me. Or almost always. They made their appearance as I came into puberty. It took me years to understand my relationship with them, long hard years that resulted in stings, rashes, battles that left me scarred. And then, after the first six year cycle, falling in love, honey released through my skin, I understood. They knew my heart better than anyone.

“You do understand what’s coming, what’s involved?”

I stop on my path, my first faltering step ever since I started the journey.

The mapping of my heart.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
When I sat down to do this, I thought I knew what the outcome would be. I thought it would be about the heart breaks, I was prepared to write about ex-lovers and wrenched goodbyes and premature endings. Nothing prepared me for what actually happened. First I drew a picture, and it didn’t turn out like I expected, but then I knew that it was true, because that’s just what life is like. I studied it and realised it looked like the surface of a moon, marked out by craters and spots.

I knew I had to take a deeper look, and decided to do a word map of my heart. Inspired by the suggestion below by Faucon of Sakinel, I typed words at random on a blank sheet of paper. Then I freewrote responses to each word. Imagine my surprise when it turned out that most of what I wrote was about my mother. My heart seemed to be all about her. And what I was writing was not pretty. I got negative, dark, angry. But I made sure I ended in a good place. I made sure I ended with the words opening, doors, path, grace, love, heart, now. Because that is where I am.

So it’s turned out to be both map and unburdening, which I now offer to the Rainbow Priestess on this humbling journey.

by Verity

Shedding the Skin

As I set out on this road that beckons me, I prepare myself for the journey like I have prepared for no other. I may be a seasoned traveller, have a nomadic heritage, but this isn’t a journey like others have been. On this path, I will not need to pack up all my belongings, taking the weight of my life with me, to set up home elsewhere. I will not be asked to go somewhere against my will, against my own desire. I will have choices, starting from right now. And best of all, I really can travel light. I have always had hope and excitement at the start of every journey, but I have also had a stubborn determination to forge ahead, trampling all the while on everything that has gone before, lest the grief, the sadness, those feelings I should have let myself experience, held me back. And I’ve had the burden of what awaits me to face, the expectations of others, a new group of new faces. So I’ve learned over the years to wear a mask, to be as far as possible what others expect of me, to hide the flaws, hide the scars, hide the darkness, to be the person that will elicit smiles, friendliness, the person who fits in. Not on this journey. On this journey, I will leave this mask, which has indeed become like a skin, behind in the surrender box. It may have served me before, but it does not belong on this journey. On this journey, I will set out naked and free to be the person I am.

by Verity

A Map To Guide Us

Lori has been doggedly mapping our journey and by George she has it now. We all know that more will detail will need to be shown on the map, and we are still to locate the Cave of the Ancients, but this will be a boon to any confused traveller.

After the Surrender

I’d just dumped my timidity and fear in the surrender box but when the painted tangle of snakes on the door began to writhe, I passed through very quickly and did not look back.

“Ah, sunlight!” I found myself sighing in relief.

“They were just trying to get a rise out of you,” rabbit offered, but I noticed it gave a furtive little shiver.

“Will you be coming with me?” I was surprised to see it still by my side.

“Uh, well, I guess that’s up to you and your ride,” it answered as we dodged out of the way of a camel who’d nearly plowed into us. Several dromedaries and twenty or so braying donkeys were milling about the wide roadway trying to connect with excited tour members. I noticed a few old friends among the many new faces, but conversation was impossible amid the noise and chaos of people, animals and belongings.

“Who ya’ looking for?” my new friend asked.

“Oh, someone who’s not here, I guess. I traveled with Geraldine last year and I’d so love to see her again.”

“She’s uh, out to here right now,” it told me, sitting and patting it’s belly,” but her daughter’s around somewhere, I just saw her hat.” Rabbit sat tall, all of fifteen inches or so and scanned the crowd.

“Georgina?” The moment I called, an adorable little jenny in a straw hat with red flowers whinnied and pushed her way through the crowd toward me. “Oh, my gosh, you look just like your mother! How is she?”

“I hope not, ” she giggled, “she’s having twins, but she’s content and told me to look for you. Hey, Belinda!”

“Hey, Georgie Girl, first trip for le enchanteur, whoo hoo, this should be fun!”

I was wrapping my mind around “Belinda” as a most unlikely name for this feisty rabbit, when suddenly the noise ceased, the chaos evaporated, and we three remained alone with nothing but the dusty road serpentining into the distance. Poor Georgina looked about to faint and I felt a bit dizzy, but rabbit was grinning like a Cheshire Cat.

“That was so cool!” it said, thumping its’ back foot in exuberance and breaking into song, “On the road again, it feels so good to be on the road. . . . . . . . ”

This was going to be one interesting trip!

by Barbara Banta

Blank Map

There is a special excercise of self-discovery —
useful for mapping heart, soul or even dilusions.

Take a single piece of white paper and a good pen.
Sit somewhere comfortable and isolated,
perhaps outside ‘neath a tree.

When you put pen to paper you must write
NON-STOP until the entire sheet is full —
never lifting the pen or editing your thoughts —
just let it flow. Later, look at this flow of ideas,
but also images formed by the shape of the lines,

like inkblots, or
smudges on your mirror.

My Heart’s Map.

The Map of My Heart is as old as I am, but like me, it is a work in progress. Let’s be honest, the details really are of no interest to anyone else, except its owner. It has always been around: the idea, the possibility, hovering just out of my reach at first. No paper quite able to capture the fine veined and veiled lines. No pencils of just the right hue…not that I was sure what that hue could possibly be.

Then one day, paper of exactly the right colour and texture floated in through my window. “Writing for Wellbeing”, it cryptically stated, and landed on my desk. I recognised it immediately, and that is the paper I have drawn my map on. Under a hitherto stranger’s skilful and guiding hand, one never critical of the pens I chose, and always enthusiastic even when the colours clashed…I was able to bring the details of my heart into focus. Create a map covered with the story of my life. A map that anchors my past and guides me into the future.

The lines at first were tentative, firming up with practice. Exploding into colour as I reached for a variety of unaccustomed tints and gained confidence with the outcome. I wear this heart on my sleeve now and occasionally a stranger brushing by smudges it or tears a corner off. But I stick it back together and relish the contentment it brings my life.

THANK YOU HEATHER BLAKEY.

Mapping My Heart

I imagine my heart is a mountainous place, much like the Blue Ridge I love. The hills are rolling up and down, some with deep valleys and some just shallow coves. They aren’t craggy mountains, they have been worn smooth by time. In its most alive seasons, my heart is full of color- brights and deeps. In the resting time, maybe the dark time, my heart is silent. I’d rather be in the alive time, but I realize that the resting time is necessary for me to live. All part of the cycle.

My heart is green in the summer, juicy and vibrant, even the hard parts become beautiful, scars growing over the bad places carved out over the years. Little caves in the mountains house the skeletons of my life, the ones I don’t want to see but have trouble letting go of. Those skeletons are buried, but sometimes when I am trekking through my heart, I stumble across a sharp bone and cut myself. It would probably be easier if I got rid of the bones in the rivers of my heart, let the water carry them away, but then how would I remember what the skeleton taught me when it was a living thing? Would I forget the lesson, the feeling of each scar created?

To get to the high parts of the mountains, the scenic vistas, I have to climb, sometimes hard, sometimes in and out of the caves. But it is so worth it- the high parts. From the top I can see the happiest days in the past, the joyous days to the future, and then parts of my heart that make the climb a requirement on the bad days.When the trekking is hard, I cling to trees for my life, wishing that I could have just stayed at the bottom, hiding in the lushness. Sometimes I let others trek with me through my heart- because I want them to or because I need their help along the way. But mostly I trek along, because I don’t want them to get hurt in the caves or slide down the mountains as I look on helplessly. It’s a dedicated climber that can make it through the forest to the top of the mountains of my heart.

The life breathes all around me, growing my heart,even as the craggy pieces of a skeleton may poke me along the way.

I like to think my heart is growing, breathing, becoming vibrant and then sleeping as the seasons do. I need those dead things to make the growth happen. Without death, life will not continue.

Walls

Day by day
brick by brick
a wall was created
that enclosed my heart

Night by night
brick by brick
I mourned the loss
of my innocence

Day into night
night into day
the wall came down
to create a bridge

Heart Map

Prompt: Make a map of your heart as proof of identity so that you may pass through the gates into the House of the Serpents.

I have no heart to speak of, my heart is small, soon I will be heartless.
Piece after piece it has been given away, carried off, pulled from its scaffolding, torn away, nerves still attached. Each one a cable through which messages propagate or not, from giver to taker down through the years and back again. When I was young and stingy, each piece was small and subject to much debate. I remember giving such a morsel to a teacher, who placed it on her desk among the others, where it sat neglected until I stole it back at the end of term without her even noticing. I took it home and gave it to my dog, and he cherished it and gave me most of his in return…..

………..My donkey has no name, at least it is kept from me. It took a while, but finally I figured it out….
Like this beast I have no true identity. Through all these years, my inner voice, checked from free expression. Not loss of identity, rather individuality never found. Never time, it was not a priority. Oh sure, I carved out a place in society by relinquishing ‘frivolous’ pleasures to concentrate on studies, career, livelihood, and the needs and preferences of others. One-by one, the choices that mold a unique persona have been stripped away.
One day, not very long ago, I awoke in the realization that my whole lifetime could pass in personal anonymity. Somehow, I managed to find a remnant of myself, seized upon it and asked, “What would you wish to do, more than anything else in the world?”
The answer came swiftly and I was shocked: “To learn to write expressively.”
I never would have guessed it in a thousand years.
How I came to find Soul Food, this animal, and this pathway is an unfolded mystery.
Perhaps I am doomed to linger at the gate forever.

Patience and Sox

“She’s gone!”
“Where?”

The donkey and the dog looked at each other in alarm.
“You don;t think……..?”

Patience looked out to sea where a ship was disappearing into the distance. Sox nodded.
“Just like that. Who’d have thought it?”

The two animals stood, folornly, surveying what had been their campsite.
“S’psose this is the end of our quest.”

Patience let her head droop a little, and Sox licked the tear that had fallen down the donkey’s muzzle. The animals stood until the ship had completely vanished and turned into the forest.
“Where now?” asked Sox, breathelessly returning from chasing a squirrel. The donkey did not reply but continued to plod miserably onwards. They made slow progress, the woods seemed to grow thicker and thicker around them, and several times they had to turn back and retrace their steps to regain the path.

Several hours later, a raven flew overhead and called out to them to follow him. He would help them find food and water. Never have a donkey and a dog been more grateful to see a raven. Patience brayed with delight and Sox ran around, chasing her tail in joy.

The two animals came into a clearing where another donkey was having ….bagels???
“Evening,” muttered the donkey, spitting crumbs in their direction.
“Oh good evening,” said Patience, politely.
“Don’t stand on ceremony,” said the strange donkey, ” there are bagels enough for everyone so go and help yourself.”

When Patience and Sox had eaten enough, they turned to the donkey they had just met.
“I’m Albert,” he told them. “You two are far too well behaved and polite. Your lady has gone on a ship to learn to listen ……Follow me but don;t get too close in case there are rules about two donkeys to a human. If you come with me we’ll get where we’re going..”
“Which is where?” asked Patience politely
“Going going….going walkies,” shouted Sox, rushing around excitedly.
“Mind your own business madam.”

Albert ambled off and Patience and Sox followed but at a distance. They were safe. They would find their beloved mistress again. And – she would know what they were talking about. Perfect. Or was it????