An Open Heart

I’m finding it quite difficult to write this post, mostly because I can’t seem to find the right words to explain what is an experience that goes beyond words. All attempts to describe the spiritual using words will be lacking and incomplete, and that’s why it’s easier to communicate through art and music and the like. 

A few months ago I created a wall hanging for my new baby and planned to make one for each of my children. I asked my daughter what colors she would like for hers and she told me she wanted a heart. I wanted to stick with the original design because of its womb symbolism, but then wondered if I could create the same technique with a heart shape.

I finally decided to try this as my daughter’s birthday was approaching. It was also around Valentine’s day and as it happened, I’d already been working on other heart-pattern wall hangings that had nothing to do with the holiday. It seemed like my work with hearts had a deeper personal meaning for me. 

Although I’ve recently been led to focus on healing my 1st chakra, my 4th chakra (the heart chakra) has also been calling for attention at the same time. That should have been clear as I started this current phase of healing at the same time I was working on a red (1st chakra color) macrame of 4 hearts (4th chakra, heart chakra) worked on a copper pipe (copper is also associated with the heart). At the time I was so overcome with the intense red color I could only sense my 1st chakra, but as this pattern of hearts kept emerging, and other issues began surfacing, I realized I was also working on healing my heart center at the same time.

(It doesn’t seem too unusual to me to work on two chakras at once since I had already dealt with a connection between my third and fifth chakras this past autumn… a post on that experience/wall hanging is soon to come.)

I will not get into all the details here (perhaps another time), but after almost two years of estrangement from my faith and my complicated relationship with the character of Jesus Christ, I am now awkwardly coming back around. I return with great skepticism and knowing that things will never be what they once were, but I long to return to the very core of what was once the foundation of my faith- that the love of Jesus is very real and transforms my life when I allow myself to receive it. In the past few weeks, I’ve given myself over to a sudden sort of surrender, taking a massive leap of faith and seeing where I land. And I have felt my heart respond with an old familiarity. It is both painful but liberating. Jesus is getting to me again and I feel my heart opening once more in areas where it has been closed for years.

And so here I was, working out a macrame pattern of an opening heart. I could feel this was mirroring what was happening within me. I went ahead and made it an “official” wall hanging and added more to it and attached a rose quartz crystal (popular crystal for the heart that has helped me tremendously). After finishing it, I looked at it and felt tears prick my eyes because I could really feel the truth of what I was staring at. 

Maintaining an open heart is so important. Boundaries are important too, and I think perhaps that’s what I’m learning about as I focus on my 1st (root) chakra. I am finding many personal connections here between my 1st and 4th chakras, and apparently Jesus is apart of that connection. It would take too much time to explain it all, but suffice to say that Jesus’ love is teaching me to remain open. And for the first time in a long time, I’m ok with that.

If you would like your own custom open heart macrame, please email me at thegracefulbirch@gmail.com.