Prisoners of our Hearts – Canal to the Soul Poem

Saturday, August 7th, 2010 at 11:14 am

Venice Photo by Halka Beseda

What would happen if we would allow ourselves to be swept away by the mysteries of life? What would happen if curiosity would take over conformity? What would happen if….? When we reach that space of wonder, something magical happens within. I wrote the following piece in Venice, but it could really be anywhere, if we just stop and listen for a moment or two. Enjoy!

Canal to the Soul

As I walked through the streets of Venice, for the first time, I couldn’t help but wonder what stories had been lived behind these walls. There was an indifference that greeted me where ever I went – as if I hadn’t arrived yet.

….

A world, still outside of myself – offering itself in its totality. A vague sense of lonesome emptiness spreading through my body. Awaiting to be met and filled. An incitement yet to be discovered.

….

As I breathed into the wholeness of the being I had become, as I opened my senses to this place of long forgotten times I drew Venice into me and awaited the reactions of my heart. In the silence of the early morning hours I could hear life creeping its way through the cracks of the houses and the smell of coffee filled the narrow spaces of the canals. Venice was awakening – but so was I. Meeting me with a hesitant invitation to enter fully – and I accepted.

….

As the train was leaving Venice towards just another destination, my meaning of reality was in serious need of reframing. I tried to catch up with my emotional world, which Venice had embraced and shaken up so elegantly. I truly fell in love. Venice the city that wraps love and joy into a veil of melancholy – a space so familiar to me – had awakened and reconnected me to that part inside that yearns for the yet unknown. It left me pondering on our souls’ portals to that place where passion entices all our senses.

….

It dawned on me that the guardians of my heart have the habit of luring me away from the unknown that life has to offer – a common malaise. Leaving me struggling with a senseless unnecessary curiosity; unrecognizable for what it is until my senses expand into an all embracing vastness and I escape the wary eyes within.

….

I have been there before – many times. Places and people that welcome me generously and forgivingly, offering an invitation to meet myself within them, each time anew. They seem to awaken me to a yearning within, out of which anything is possible. They are the potential shapers of my life to come.

….

And I keep searching for them despite a sense of certainty that somehow it is me that must be found.

Enjoy the Venetian Boat Song by Felix Mendelssohn: