The rite of spring

If you listen to Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, he'll tell you about the violence of the months bridging winter and summer. The lightest, sweetest smelling petals, dormant bulbs coming back up, and a late snow and heavy rain to put you back in your place. After the summer heat we've been having lately, this morning reminds me of spring's back hand, and my dark heart is coming out to meet it. It seems that every heart must have its darkness, every soul its shadow, that is at once everywhere and nowhere, both a wave and a particle. I think of Joseph Conrad's deep jungles, but I don't think the blackness is their product, just a possibility. My dark heart stretched and yawned last night and is speaking its first words this morning. I've read that in different cultures, the dark heart will settle in different spots on you. Your stomach, maybe, or your muscles. Your temples. I find it in my digestive organs and the space between my skin and arms. It's good to look the dark heart in the eye every so often, and to carry the summer when winter runs late. And to breathe.