From the heart

Place your hands on your heart

An organ the size of a clenched fist

With an average weight of about 300 g

Behind the sternum, in the mediastinum — the central chest space, its tip pointing to the left

It beats, thumps, pumps, faster or slower, louder or softer,

tirelessly.

If it stops, it’s over, I am over.

I hold it, and it holds me

In life.

I remain for a while in listening.

Then I begin to move my hands, circling in one direction, then the other.

I stop.

I start again — this time from the heart.

The heart circles one way, then the other — moving my hands.

I inhale.

On the exhale, I imagine the heart expanding in all directions — backward, sideways, forward.

At the end of the exhale, I release.

I follow the exhale with a continuous sound “ssssss”,

then with another sound,

from the heart

I move the heart with voice, I sound from the heart.

I activate the vocal cords and the whole body from the heart.

I open my hands and open my entire self from the heart.

I close my hands into an embrace.

I draw to my heart myself, another, the world.

Recorded by: Zrinka Šimičić