Dear Heart

What is life?

Oh, Maggie May. It’s question after everlasting question.

It is a tumble of words and a throb of sounds; music to lift you and gift you and steal you and fill you. It is the quiet of empty roads, the silence of choice, the smell of night and the pull of the sea.

It is love. It is Mama’s hand on your head all the times you’ll want her, and all the times you won’t. It is Deaide singing through every day of your life; tales of you and yours and all you might do and how you make their hearts stop. It is all of us, here and gone, all of us who are part of you and somewhere with you in the silent flutter of a butterfly’s wings.

It is fear. It’s not knowing and wishing it was different and marching to your own beat even when you lose the rhythm. Sometimes you lose the rhythm for years. That’s alright.

It is where you’re from and where you want to be, it is who you are and what you can make of yourself. It is going home when you need to.

It is respect for all creatures. It is an open heart. It is compassion. It is a guarding of innocence. It is running and leaping and falling from the sky with your arms outstretched, laughing, laughing all the way.

It is knowing the sky sings a song for you, even when you can’t hear it, even when you can no longer believe. It is your heart exploding with love. It is the ground swelling under your feet when it hears your pulse. It is knowing how big you are, how grand, how glorious.

It is knowing when your soul is tired and learning how to mind it. It is sometimes being selfish.

It is crystal night skies with your lover. It is heart’s-ease and violets to capture your eye; mint to make you hunger, lavender to soothe.

It is the ache in your solar plexus going on forever, and also, dear heart, it is an unknown voice in the dark to save you. It is allowing your fragile heart to shatter, and it is slowly, slowly, making it whole again.

It is the blaze of light inside you. It is the light, and the shadow. It is loving them both.