A fully functional heart has infinite capacity. The more space available to the heart the more connections it makes.
The heart automatically personalizes experience. If we are poets, regardless of what issue we write about, eventually, if we include the heart in our writing, we need to write large, but also live large. Even if our personalities are small and we tiptoe around, in our poetry, if our poetry is heart-centered, we can amplify our engagement with the world, and that can ripple out into how we live our lives.
Milosz was very effective in demonstrating how poetry can create space. I can tell, when I am reading a poem (by any poet), how much heart is in the poem. Poets work with metaphor. Metaphors create space. Space for possibility. Psychic space. Space for relationship, space for processing, space for personalizing.
Take a tree. What is it? It is a big plant. Many trees make a forest, They breathe carbon dioxide and exhale oxygen. They are beautiful. Children climb them. They can be tapped for syrup, they grow fruit and nuts. Birds flock in them and build nests in their branches, their roots prevent erosion. But as a shamanic practitioner it is a tree that best represents the three realms of reality: the above, the middle world and the below world.When I look at a tree I remember this. I also remember trees I have had a personal attachment to growing up and as an adult. There were, and continue to be, trees that are like family to me or friends. Trees powerfully represent what is right with and best about the world. For me they hold space. When they are cut down, I notice a huge gap. It's not just that they occupy space, they hold it and they fill it uniquely. So when a large tree is cut down, there is an empty space, (similar to when a person we love dies). Empty space might sound redundant. Isn't all space empty? No, some space stays energized as if pregnant with what was there, as when an animal goes extinct.
Mass extinction is one of the issues we must personalize as one-planet people. It is enough to champion one issue, as poets, especially as heart-centered poets, because the heart automatically knows how everything in the universe is connected. As we begin to write large, learning how to use metaphor to create space, our heart naturally moves into our poetry and further expands our metaphors.
Milosz is an example of an old-world person (/ poet) who evolved a whole-world personality by using his poetry to make space for his expanding heart.
(Article changed on Apr 17, 2025 at 1:17 PM EDT)
(Article changed on Apr 17, 2025 at 5:39 PM EDT)
(Article changed on Apr 17, 2025 at 5:57 PM EDT)
(Article changed on Apr 17, 2025 at 6:18 PM EDT)
(Article changed on Apr 18, 2025 at 7:46 AM EDT)
(Article changed on Apr 18, 2025 at 7:54 AM EDT)
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
