On guarding the wellspring

In this podcast post, I mark my 27th birthday and enter a new chapter of my life with discussion on key lessons to guard my heart and a summary of ways that I use sound as a source of healing. I start with a verse that has long inspired me: Proverbs 4:23.

“Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.” - NIV

“Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.” - ESV

I end with a channeled poem written yesterday, that served as a nice culmination of these thoughts.

Hear how the jewels of experience sing

You are stepping into 
your dream life
stepping into what you want 
meeting your desires -
your dreams on the threshold -
of presence, and present expectation.
The gift is here for you
to hold and cherish.
You are dancing into -
the enchanted forest
with your lover and your shared love, joy, and bliss.
You are entering and guarding and keeping your state of bliss 
You are holding your state of bliss
You are guarding your heart 
for it holds the wellspring of life.
Your heart is a deep well 
which is tapped into the river and the ocean of life, from which all things flow
your heart is a deep well of groundwater channeling from the ocean of life from which all things grow and take their essence, the spirit of creation.
You are belonging to this ebb and flow of life, of creation
You make a part of this beauty, you observe and cherish and hold parts of this beauty.
Your life is a deep well of experience which you can draw from 
each time you pull up, you are a new-experienced person 
You are made new – observing your past experience, turning it in your hand, rubbing out the ugliness, the hatred, the pain, the hurt, the evil that may be there – 
You scrub it out and wash it clean until you are left with a token of experience, a gift, a lesson to share, a KNOWING for yourself -
You survived this and you can show others the way.

Hatred carries these stones of experience on his back and he delights in the filthy burden he casts as stones upon others.
Hatred cannot pull up experience from the well. His well is filled to the top with rocks piled up that he does not polish or tend to, all he can do is pick up these over-used ammunitions.
His water is stagnant and dirty. His is not the wellspring of life. 

Your wellspring benefits from a windfall.
You accept a state of grace. 
Your present is untamed beauty.
Your past no longer haunts you, it visits with kind, ghostly shadows only when it needs to and it does not frighten you.
Your future is a sparkling pool of clean water
in a green field
in the healthy heart of the land, which the well of your heart reaches to and promises.
Your presence is a knowing regard into the well of your life
Your presence carries with it the gifts of magnification
Your heart is magnanimous and free
The handle is stable, the bucket is light, the water rises as easily as breath enters your lungs -
All you must do is hold -
Hold fast to your heart, hold on, hold with.
Your younger self may meet you at the well, 
Your future self, your child, your lover, your friend,
May meet you at the well
And all you must do is hold together, marvel, love this gift of experience, this treasured jewel from the depths of creation
this once-ugly thing turned into knowledge that is alive and glittering. 
Hold – the dreams of your life call you from the depths - 
Hear – how many of those jewels sing out to you - 
…..
And guide you along as touchstones on your path.