Head versus Heart Matters

A metaphor for studio and life

In between doing all the things I need to get done for the current schedule of courses, I’ve been stealing away moments of time to work on this piece.

Seeing it here among all the piles and possibilities I’ve brought to the table, has me in a contemplative mood today.

I feel words stirring inside, identifying in metaphors the deeper meaning of it all.

Like how seemingly random elements, created and gathered in different seasons, fit perfectly into the junctures, as if intentionally designed for this purpose.

Each element still needs to be attached to the others and I’m not quite sure how just yet. But looking at them all through this lens, encourages me to continue letting the work unfold, layer by layer, one element, one decision at a time, as I follow whatever the heart prompts me to do.

The mind will begin pestering me with practical matters, like how and when and why, but the heart will lead me step-by-step through its yearning for freedom of expression, creativity, curiosity, and permission to explore with little concern for the logic behind it all.

Even looking at it through this lens of heart matters versus the head, has me in that contemplative place.

How often we identify one as more relevant than the other, as if they exist in completely different realms—the head space and that of the heart. As if both are not contained within the same body.

How easily we can believe the two are at war with each other. That to follow the head, we must eschew the heart.

How wishy washy we blame the heart for being, with its feelings and emotions and desire for love, belonging, and beauty.

From this place, the mind takes on the role of stern guardian, without which we humans could not survive. Prone as we are to being deceived by the heart to undertake lazy endeavors—like weaving garbage into dead branches; activities with no apparent value.

Where would we be if we let the heart rule?

Yet how many stories do we hear of someone or another wishing they’d listened to their heart and changed majors way back when they had the chance in school, now miserable and stuck. Grinding through their days with the promise of something better out there someday. Someday in retirement, as if we have control over life and the number of our days.

That is the lie of the ages, don’t you think?

Not the one that says to save it all for a rainy day, but the one that says we must be ruled to survive. Whether by the head or the heart.

The one that wants to keep us believing in that divide. The one that wants us to submit to the will of another and feel suspicious of what deep down in our bones we already know.

There is no such thing as separate. One thing will always impact the other.

That space between each is not intended to be an impassable chasm. It is the connective tissue. The glue. What the heart wants and what the head needs, were designed to work perfectly in simpatico.

How different the world might be if we understood this truth.