Throw Down Your Heart

“ One love, one heart, one destiny. ” – Bob Marley

I just came back from a long walk by the ocean on this beautiful first day of fall, it was wonderful to clear my head and just take in the beauty all around me. After spending a lot of my time watching the gull family on the roof of the hotel across from my apartment building (this past spring & summer) it was fun to watch the gull chicks playing and learning how to swim in the bay – I call it the nursery, a perfect place where the adult gulls can enjoy some peace and quiet as the chicks all gather together! With the sun shining and jackets off, I’m hoping for many more days like this as we move deeper into fall.

I’m in between postings today, in my last post, I wrote of reaching out and trying something new – I registered for a Food Poetry workshop at my local neighbourhood house (Gordon Neighbourhood House) for the “West End Food Festival” and also volunteered as a blogger for the event. I just submitted my post on the Food Poetry workshop and hope to see it up on their blog soon! I was feeling nervous about this until my dear friend Yvonne wrote me a note and said to write the post as if I was writing for my own blog, believe me, this helped a lot! I leave on holiday next week and wanted to set a new tone for when I get back by taking some risks now…

… to throw down my heart like a set of dice and see where it leads me, to walk an unfamiliar path and leave the familiar on the shelf for another day. It’s easy to throw down my heart for nature’s cocooning embrace, for the alchemy of words housed in beloved books and for the delicious thought of future undulating days ahead – what is harder, is opening myself up to the possibility of failure, moving through the world with a heart that may get scraped or bumped along the way, yet knowing that this is the only one true path revealed to me by my own healing heart.

I came across the title of this post as I was reading the September 2016 issue of “Sunset” magazine – an article written by Jess Chamberlain called “Heartland”, introduces the reader to the owner of the “Jennings Hotel” in the town of Joseph, Oregon. Greg Hennes has a left arm tattoo that reads, “Throw Down Your Heart”, he was inspired to have these words inked on his skin from a Bela Fleck documentary about banjo music in Africa. These words haunt me as well and I got to thinking, what would we all throw down our hearts for?

The unique Strangler tree shot in the Vallarta Botanical Gardens near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

A beautiful harp-shaped tree in Stanley Park (Vancouver, B.C.), a severe wind has since blown the branch down that created this lovely shape.

Journal Entry: December 16, 1999 – Villa Lucero

Well, we didn’t make it down to the plaza on December 11th as some very dark clouds rolled in. We were worried about getting caught in a rainstorm. We’ve experienced some strong ones before here in Puerto Vallarta. And we left our umbrellas in Vancouver! Despite our worries that day, it didn’t rain – we were fooled.

I’m out on the terrace again with Huguette candles lit, it is a very warm evening. Some evenings have been cool and a Mexican blanket was in order. Writing Huguette’s name reminds me that she called us tonight. She has called us weekly since we arrived, she has helped us to not feel too homesick. We are not just here on a short holiday – we are actually living here in Mexico! It is a totally different experience.

This incredible tree in Stanley Park (Vancouver, B.C.) looks like it’s throwing down it’s woody heart.

This shot shows why I’m drawn to the beautiful forest of Stanley Park (Vancouver, B.C.)