Work of the eyes is done, now
go and do heart work
on all the images imprisoned within you; for you
overpowered them: but even now you don’t know them.

-Rainer Maria Rilke

I’m sorting myself out these last few days after travels in Africa and stops on the way home, slowing reintegrating myself back into the realities of life here in North Carolina. Am catching my breath and musing about where all of this energy is going. There seem to be thousands of things that I should attend to now. My A.D.D. kicks in. How to take steps and prioritize? I have long considered myself a heart person, but right now, more clearly than ever that I can remember, I feel clarity and confidence in the brain in my heart. I don’t feel confused in the same ways that I have in the past at such moments. The heart directs what to do next. I go where its energy directs, and trust it. The mind feels calmer, willing to follow rather than kick up anxieties and doubts.

I once had a vision that, quoted from my dissertation,  “The heart is our Africa. It is our misunderstood, uncomprehended, big land of rich mysteries that are inconceivable and perplexing to the Western mind and modes of perception. We treat the terrain of the heart as we have treated Africa. We unapologetically colonize, brutalize, infantilize, exploit, and enslave it, and are utterly dismissive of its messages.”

Something in my heart has been enlivened and reactivated after this trip to Kenya. I am intrigued to see where it leads.mMy heart feels more in charge than ever. It is a good sign, I’m sure of it. Must go and do heart work. As Rilke explains, I’ve overpowered its images, and know that as yet I don’t know them. Uncovering them is my next quest.