heart of chambers

When important people in your life have gone you're only left with a memory. Their names and faces are almost permanently engraved on specific songs, places, and even seasons. Those you have spent the most intimate of times with, whether friends or lovers, are the people who remain closest to your heart -- an organ which is our life force, but has for some reason been deemed a muscle that is capable of physically feeling emotion. It is strange that when you "love" you feel this gnawing, pulling, tightness in the left side of your chest and the heart actually responds, pumping hard inside of you as if it is the one responsible for creating such a mentally dependent feeling. Of the many times I have experienced this feeling, I wonder what my heart makes of meaning. If it can in fact feel "love" then can it sense meaning? And if so, what does it mean when those who once made your pulse meaningfully exist come back into your life? I'd like to think that there is something bigger than my own mind's interpretation of the world around me and that these recurring characters in my life are playing a bigger part in this game I play day to day. I crave meaningful encounters and have for a while now. Amidst all of this superficial nonsense I concern myself with, where can I place the tangible parts of my own reality? These days I wonder if I even have any.



My friend Zoe has brought the following to my attention, and I leave you with this:

Mammals and birds have hearts with four chambers. Reptiles and turtles have hearts with three chambers. Fish have hearts with two chambers. Insects and mollusks have hearts with one chamber. Worms have hearts with one chamber, although they may have as many as eleven single-chambered hearts. Unicellular bacteria have no hearts at all; but even they have fluid eternally in motion, washing from one side of the cell to the other, swirling and whirling. No living being is without interior liquid motion. We all churn inside.