Meandering along the water’s edge, fire and water kiss the earth in a resplendent dance between sun and wave. A deep internal resonance emerges in my being. My heart, like a moving mandala flowering outward, expands to meet the sunlight shimmering in the water’s reflection.

When the heart opens to the outermost edges of its blossoming, there is a threshold where joy and sadness meet and intermingle- like how a flower in full bloom reaches its completion and naturally moves toward its waning. Both are necessarily included in the wholeness (yin and yang) of the heart.

Whether through trauma, shock, prolonged illness or stress, or any kind of profound loss one can lose connection to the nourishing warmth of the heart. Yet, like the sun, the warmth and the heart is always there. Sometimes it is hidden behind blankets of clouds. Sometimes it is only seen in its reflection in water- or in the eyes of loving kindness- or in a warm embrace- or in beauty, art, nature, or music. Sometimes, the light of shen/of the heart, is only visible in the dark the way the sun is reflected by the moon at night, or by the light of shen/consciousness coming from deep within the body like lava from the earth’s core.