Reader,

In my mind, the anatomical heart is a color-coded architectural drawing. Four bedroom, two bath, small tubes off the roof like apartment building chimneys.

In this depiction, what matters are the chambers of the heart.

This body part has been replicated so much in art that it becomes hard to imagine the organ any other way.




But something happens when you think of the heart in terms of the walls dividing the spaces instead. Not the rooms. The walls. The walls give a shape to the heart.

Research by cardiologist Tossent-Gausp showed that the walls at the bottom of the heart are like a macrame knot, a single piece of muscle folded in on itself. This muscle is the ventricular myocardial band. It has a shape that gives us humans, and many other mammals, helical heart. 

Learn more: cw: this link has footage of actual heart organs beware! but also wow!


To continue with architecture metaphors, a helix is a spiral in three dimensions. A spiral staircase. And a spiral, specifically a logarithmic spiral, like this imaginary staircase of heart, is a fractal.

If you talked to me anytime since the day I watched Donald Duck in Mathmagic Land in fourth grade, you may know I love fractals, these magical shapes that appear the same at different levels of scale.

Let me suggest that your heart, beating everyday under that teeshirt, should be thought of as fractal. What are you learning to love a little bit more in yourself, right now, so you can love it in the world?

Your heart is a fractal but also as a knot, according to this same research. Make of that what you will. It's a matter of perspective, literally how you slice it.

🔮💜,
HANA

// Reading:
How We Show Up: Reclaiming Family, Friendship, and Community- Mia Birdsong
Deep Liberation Shamanic Teaching for Reclaiming Wholeness in a Culture of Trauma - Langston Kahm

// Listening:
Mood Valiant -  Hiatus Kaiyote

// Watching:
Lupin (netflix)