My heart is a million years old. It has died and been birthed so many times, the sensation is like blinking, it happens whether anyone’s aware of it or not.
It has seen a lot, this heart of mine. Aggression. Hunger. Beauty. Love. Evolution. Extinction. My heart has been at the centre of it, on the periphery of it, has even caused it.
Sometimes it has arrived in a fragile body, with skin that is soft and semi-transparent, and eyes that are quiet and pale. Sometimes, the body is so resilient that my heart has used its muscle to make changes that have filtered down through the ages. Sometimes, the body only lives a few days. Sometimes longer — creaking and crumbling at the end, and resting more often between tasks.
My heart is a million years old, and has loved more times than there are ants in an oversized colony. It has loved every kind of person. Every gender, every culture, every disposition. All equally. Sometimes simultaneously. Always fully — with everything that is available to it. Over time, my heart has loved every creature, every plant, every subtle shadow or shift of light.
And yet, this heart is often ridiculed. Disbelieved. Discounted. Many people only trust what they can see, or perceive in measurable units. The intangibles, like my heart, are often swept aside — sometimes accidentally, but often out of fear as someone first starts to suspect its existence.
This sustainable heart is the ultimate in recycling. It never wears out and has its origins long before the phrase “planned obsolescence” was ever dreamed of. It gives and gives and gives and only asks our co-operation in return.
This ancient heart is the part of me that “just knows”. The instinct. The gut. The primal assurance. It’s the confidence in every breath. The unshakable knowing.
My heart is a million years old — which is why I learned, early on, to trust it.
— heidi kalyani, 2016
from the *nothing is black and white* project: illustration created out of meditation with a single unbroken line
