Regarding Healing the Heart

The first rule of healing the heart: One must want the healing.

Incredible as it seems in this age so focused on healing the emotional wounds of the past, in this age where enterprises are intent on commercializing the need for healing, there are some who do not want to be healed of the hurts of their pasts.

Not for them the unknown territory of walking free of the anger and the soul’s bleeding. They hug these to them in an illusion of security and control. They run from it, knowing that freedom brings risk of knowing such pain again. Yet, they find themselves living through it again and again by the choices they make. They will turn away those who would offer solace and emotional safety for their healing. They will remake those who would bring sanctuary while they process the spiritual pus from their hearts. They fear not only the healing, but having been made whole, it will be for naught should pain come again.

They are blind to the strength that can be found by preserving through the storms of life. They dare not feel the hope of the light of  one who shines with love and open arms, beckoning them to safe harbor. They do not learn that having won through the maelstrom, they will know how to navigate those seas again. They will not see the beauteous dawn that follows the dark night of the soul.

 Dark Night of the Soul
By St. John of the Cross
Translated by A.Z. Foreman

Once in the dark of night,
Inflamed with love and yearning, I arose
(O coming of delight!)
And went, as no one knows,
When all my house lay long in deep repose

All in the dark went right,
Down secret steps, disguised in other clothes,
(O coming of delight!)
In dark when no one knows,
When all my house lay long in deep repose.

And in the luck of night
In secret places where no other spied
I went without my sight
Without a light to guide
Except the heart that lit me from inside.

It guided me and shone
Surer than noonday sunlight over me,
And lead me to the one
Whom only I could see
Deep in a place where only we could be.

O guiding dark of night!
O dark of night more darling than the dawn!
O night that can unite
A lover and loved one,
Lover and loved one moved in unison.

And on my flowering breast
Which I had kept for him and him alone
He slept as I caressed
And loved him for my own,
Breathing an air from redolent cedars blown.

And from the castle wall
The wind came down to winnow through his hair
Bidding his fingers fall,
Searing my throat with air
And all my senses were suspended there.

I stayed there to forget.
There on my lover, face to face, I lay.
All ended, and I let
My cares all fall away
Forgotten in the lilies on that day.

For those who love them and who hope that one day, the promise of the whole person would bloom, it is a pain sometimes beyond bearing. Yet they know that no matter the risks of their own personal pain and that the promise may never come to be, they bear the burden of hope. Sometimes, it breaks them and they must in their own turn seek healing, but when there has been honest love, they do not count such pain as a loss or a failure, but as an experience for which no matter how small the gains, it was worth the cost.

There is a show which has two recurring motifs of that magic always has a cost and there is no greater magic than love. Yet, they do not explore the extension of these- that love has a cost. It calls that people use trust and faith in each other as compass and sextant, to be willing to risk the turbulent waters not only once, but again and again, with the light of the other as beacon back again. They must want not only the good times, the laughter, the joy, but also be willing to face the dark, side by side.

In short, to make the journey with open arms.