Letting my heart break

I've been learning to listen to what it whispers as it cracks.

April showers bring May flowers? Goodness, I'm feeling that energy moving as the calendar flips over to May.

(As an aside, that phrase dates back to an 1157 poem by Thomas Tusser that contained the lines "Sweet April showers do spring May flowers." Yay, poetry!)

It's been a month.

Parts of it unexpected, such as the myriad medical emergencies in my orbit. Other aspects were more predictable, in timing if not in form.

Nearly a year has passed since I moved.

As a date-sensitive, anniversary-aware person, my heart has carried a lot of heaviness as I move through time and the chaos of life.

Mercury is retrograde in my 8th house of sex, death, trauma, and fear, and I can't help but drink this cocktail that's been pushed into my hands.

What does it taste like? Imagine an Old Fashioned with more bitters than you expected, to the point where you question the bartender's competence despite how upscale the establishment is, and an orange flavor that you notice more and more as you sip. What richness.

Astrological or otherwise, I'm going through a sorting process of emotions, connections, and projects.

I've come to recognize that life tends to come at me with themes and packages of lessons for me to learn.

I'm writing these words now on a cloudy but shiny May Monday morning, after a weekend bursting to fullness with people time, which my fellow introverts may recognize as a risky endeavor during a time of unrest.

But I'm here.

I have my favorite candle, gifted to me recently, nearby.

Fresh air and new music.

Work and people I'm looking forward to this week.

My adorable cat is here, too, snuggling aggressively, licking my wrist every other sentence. It's taken me 30% longer to write these words because of her. She's in her happy place after there were multiple new people gushing over her.

I feel closer to myself than I've yet come. This process, I'm coming to understand, is a defining feature of my life's journey.

A core characteristic of this path is the role that heartbreak plays.

My heart has broken open in more places and ways than I can count during and after my departure from my coastal oasis.

I've been learning to listen to what it whispers as it cracks.

Instead of running from a breaking heart, I sit with it, with curiosity and compassion, like a kindly, caring detective.

I listen and I learn.

And I watch as life brings me connections in many forms that facilitate healing and growth.

A conversation with someone I've been connecting with recently helped crystalize this for me over the weekend.

My astrology writing and work have proven supportive in surprising ways.

And I'm currently reading Let Your Heart Be Broken, the memoirs of classical composer Tina Davidson.

Among many striking words that resonate deep within me, she writes:

"Let your heart be broken. Allow, expect, look forward to. The life that you have so carefully protected and cared for. Broken, cracked, rent in two. Heartbreakingly, your heart breaks, and in the two halves, rocking on the table, is revealed rich earth. Moist, dark soil, ready for new life to begin."

I nod along with Davidson's sentiment, as I continue to discover lovable pieces of me within my heart's crack.

Not pieces to love "in spite of."

Nor even in the "I wear my scars proudly" way.

They're unmet layers of me.

Or to use Davidson's words, "Moist, dark soil, ready for new life to begin."

As I like to joke with my friend Jena and our writing group, "life has been lifing."

But I'm finding myself an increasingly steady presence on the emotion ocean, trusting both the seaworthiness of my life's vessel and the navigation unit whose inner workings I don't understand but nevertheless guides me to where I'm meant to go to facilitate me coming into greater inner union with myself.

Here I am.

Thanks for being here with me.

I appreciate you.