Your Wild Artful Heart, Part I
The artful heart is a wild heart.
It catches the scent of true desire on the breeze and wants to give chase.
It wants to roam.
It wants to explore.
It wants to run with the wolves.
The Wild Artful Heart is insistent and determined. And sometimes we back away from what is insistent and determined within us, because it feels unfamiliar. Uncomfortable.
Not quite safe.
Wild scares a lot of us.
Because, to a lot of us, wild looks a little like reckless. A little like running amok.
Wild Has Been Sadly, Terribly Misunderstood.
Reckless? Amok? Consider the actual lives of wild creatures.
Wild creatures are alert. Incredibly alert. They are vigilant. They are aware of opportunity as well as danger. They are present. They pay attention.
Wild creatures know their territory. They know where their food can be found, they know where the water holes are. They know three ways to get back to their burrow if trouble arises. They know how to find their way in the dark. They are at home in their space. They inhabit it.
Wild creatures are focused on the task at hand. When they’re building a nest, they’re building a nest. When they’re feeding their young, they’re feeding their young. They do what needs to be done, when it needs doing.
Wild creatures are patient. Predators wait in the brush, they perch on the fencepost, they stake out their zone and they scan and wait. Their prey also waits, silent and unmoving. When life is in the balance, either to get a meal or to be one, patience is survival.
Wild creatures are sovereign. They belong to themselves and only to themselves. They resist domestication, resist a cage, resist being turned into subservient beasts. Their lives are their own, and they will fight to the death to maintain their freedom.
Your Wild Heart is Wild in All The Same Ways.
Not reckless. Not amok. But fierce. Alert. And a little out of control. Which is to say, beyond your conscious control.
Your artful heart is in partnership with the world. It’s your connection to the ineffable source, that wellspring from which your creative adventure is sustained. And it wants what it wants. Your job is to be its hands and feet, its co-creator, the means by which its longings are brought into being.
So let your artful heart sharpen your senses, show you the territory, focus your attention, suffuse you with patience, and remind you of your own sovereignty.
Next time it calls to you, don’t back away. Listen to it. Embrace it. Be grateful for it.
And run with it.
