Inanna, Heart, and Pericardium Go for a Long Dark Walk…

This is a paper I'm submitting for my Bridging Classics class:

    

This paper has been writing itself in my head since we began the lecture on the heart. In one of life’s perfect ironies, we study the heart in Bridging Classics, A&P, Living Anatomy, and TCM Theory, as I mend my broken heart.

I sit on the edge of my seat while Regina details how blood moves, like the never-ending infinity symbol, through the heart and lungs. Perhaps she knows the answer. When we drew, in bright magic markers, the placement of the heart on the body of our lab partners, I thought enlightenment would shine at me from the pink and green lines on my partner’s body. When Dr. Xue wrote the formulas and acupuncture points, I thought he might be secreting to me the cure for a broken heart. I can’t decide if the pain is more like Heart Yin Deficiency or Heart Blood Deficiency.

In a way, OCOM itself has given me this heartbreak as it was a fellow student who pursued my now ex-boyfriend. This began, fittingly enough, on Valentine’s Day when she boldly announced to me that he would be hers. It has been an incredibly difficult two-quarter period as I move through grief, rage, confusion, and betrayal.

The song by Sinead O’Connor, “Thank You for Hearing Me,” has the lyrics;

Thank you for breaking my heart

Thank you for tearing me apart

Now I’ve a strong, strong heart

Thank you for breaking my heart

If the heart is broken, or actually, opened, it is strengthened to receive and give more love. The pericardium as both protector and muse, grows stronger, wiser, and more discerning for the heart with each break/opening and healing.

As I mend, the joy of qigong moves through me. I delight in my new kitten, Blue Bai Wu (apologies to Roy Orbison), connect more fully to my cranky cat, Samantha, and fall more deeply in love with my old, arthritic dog, Kieran/Kirin (how fitting that Dog is the animal of Pericardium—protector and bringer of joy).

My body feels exhilaration as I transition my spastic leg muscles and asthmatic lungs from walking a 3-mile course into running it. I love and appreciate my friends more deeply as they comfort me with laughter, dancing, and study dates. I open to the lessons my clients teach me and feel awe for them and their healing process. I cling to gratitude because some days, that’s all I have and it is enough.

As I fall more deeply in love with myself, I use this time as a way to delve more deeply into my own blocked heart. Pericardium brings me closer to self-love, which has already taught me is the cure for multiple sclerosis. What else will this new depth of discovery cure? Mortality?

I still have nightmares as my heart transforms this pain. The Shen of the Heart working while I work with my brilliant therapist. He coaches me deeper into the darker spaces of self, bringing my heart the light it craves. I think of Inanna shedding her worldly goods to go deeper underground to steal the Underworld from her sister, Ereshkigal, only to finally be killed and hung on a hook to rot. It is then up to Ereshkigal to birth the rivers and the harvest.

My heart listens, waiting for the pearl of wisdom that will tell it how to stay open and in love without being crushed by terror. I remember the flies who whispered the secret words to bring Inanna back to life. I listen and I wait.