I'm listening to a 1973 live version of Angel From Montgomery sung by Bonnie Raitt, enjoying the emotion of the song and simultaneously wishing I had a soulful singing voice like hers. Prior to that I had been looking at photos of my heart wall. I've been drawn to heart-shaped things for as long as I can remember. My collection of heart-shaped rocks is ever growing and so, it would seem, is my accumulation of heart-shaped items. What you see below doesn't encompass all of the pieces, but these live on a short section of wall that greets me every time I step into my craft room. Two were gifts, others were bought on travels through New Mexico and New Zealand, and a few are mass-produced items from box stores. Some of these started with clay pieces I made while taking pottery classes in Montana and New York a few years back. To a couple I added wire, beads and ribbon. These bring me a lot of joy to make. Digging through my beads is always fun, and using different mediums together inspires me. I've made several more of these, but they can't all fit on this wall, and some were given away as gifts.
I just quickly looked up the symbolism of hearts. Among many things I read the following: It is the resting place for the creative spirit. It is the source of the flow of our creative life energy. It represents the dream we wish to manifest.
While this surely refers to one's actual heart, having recently had a conversation with a dear friend about something I'd like to pursue creatively made that last sentence really hit home. Perhaps I need to surround myself with even more of these clay-bead-ribbon-wire heart tchotchkes to encourage my creative spirit and to find the courage to do what my heart is telling me to do - to manifest a very specific dream. Funny how we find things precisely when we need to.