Home is Where the Heart is
So where does ‘heart’ live, exactly?
Betsy sat, off on her own in the woods, swinging thin sturdy legs from her favorite branch of her favorite tree. The massive silver beech grew just at the crest of the hill that dropped off to the creek bed behind the house. Its roots helped to hold up the slope and its crown lifted high into the heavens. Stars looked brighter from inside its towering strength. So did the world.
She wasn’t supposed to climb in her school uniform, but today Betsy didn’t care. She wasn’t supposed to climb this tree at all, but she had never cared much for those kinds of rules. “If you fall, you could fall all the way down the hill and into the creek. At the very least you would hurt yourself.” Her mother’s words echoed as she settled in.
Betsy didn’t quite see how it would be possible to fall all the way down the hill, but grownups were like that. She leaned in closer, adjusting her bum on the branch, and giving the tree trunk a big kiss in greeting.
“So, Betsy, how’s it going?” Her unseen companions, especially the angels, did tend to show up here, welcomed by nature’s embrace. The trees never pretended the angels weren’t there, after all. The silver beech mostly listened. Today Betsy wasn’t interested.
“I hate that name. No one calls me Betsy but Dad.”
“Is it the name you hate?”
“What?!”
“Never mind. What are you listening to?”
She realized there was a song playing in her head. “Where is Love?” from Oliver. Music was her favorite class and singing in the school choir the best part of every day. It was no wonder the song they had just learned was playing on an inner loop. She listened for a minute.
“Why do you ask?” Betsy wanted to know.
The angel was sitting next to her on the branch now, mysteriously quiet. “I’m supposed to figure this out, right?” Betsy was in no mood for games and swung her legs hard enough to make the branch bounce a bit.
The angel smiled, as did the tree, the woods, and the creek below. “You’re here to remember.”
Betsy found ‘home’ all over the world, typically in nature, in areas where nature is respected if not revered. Was she always finding herself? “Under the bonnet” is always available if and when we are willing to lift the curtain. Heart fractals live anywhere we give them room to breathe. But that was Emily talking. Allegedly grownup Emily, who pretended to be what the world wanted to see.
Emily took a deep breath, smiling at the memory of little Betsy. She felt all the smiles, every fractal of heart-collected treasures gathered from years of learning. Smiles from the trees, the rocks and the waters graced her every moment. Heartsounds from wild and glorious creatures harmonized with her own inner melodies. What glorious adventures she had experienced! What infinite paths! Birdsong alone was worth the trip. And the sea creatures! “You never told me about those,” she whispered to that long-ago angel.
“So how’s it going Betsy?” Emily whispered. “Are the new adventures fun?”
An inner chortle lit up fresh facets of ginormous infinite heart. More adventures. More heart space. More love to be lived.
Where is love? Right. Here. And, everywhere. And, with that, Betsy melted into Emily’s expanding heart. Home, at last. What if finding our porch lights was all part of the game? Or was it a candle in the window?
In Earth School everyone is here to learn what they come in to learn, in the way they come in to learn it. Only a rare few want the lights turned on early, and, for those, that is undoubtedly part of their agenda.
“Let’s see if we can turn the lights on in a world where that is not ‘possible.’” That one is a tough ticket to get and a tough gig if one manages it. Some of us do love a challenge.
It’s a mad, mad, mad, world. “Why don’t they know? Why can’t they see?”
Why couldn’t she? She had to learn to let herself, be.
