‘Didst thou ever see men of better equipment than those in red and blue?’
~ The Life of St Collen

In the House of my Heart
the red and blue people dance,
in the chambers they are transformed.

In my right atrium a blue woman arrives
with a herd of blue cattle with blue lips, blue tongues,
they are mooing, sad and sorrowful, she speaks their names:
Blue Anxious One, Blue Doldrums, Blue Depression, Hornless Blue.
Other cowherds, horseherds come, boys and girls with hounds
who are yappy or listless and mysterious people
in the best of equipment red and blue
lead them into the next chamber.

In my right ventricle the cattle are fed and bedded down
on straw that looks and feels like water,
the horses are put out to pasture
and the hounds are given a sausage or two.
It’s alright to feel old here, it’s alright to fall asleep.
It’s alright to have long grey hair and knots in your beard
even if you’re a woman because the one who awaits you accepts
the coming of all souls no matter how weary in imperfection
drawn in daze, in trance, to their transformation
by the people equipped in blue and red

to where my lungs transform every sorrow
in the tiny chambers of the alveoli –
in every one there is a king
who has a cauldron
who resides over a feast
where people in red and blue dance
and this place is also the Heart of my Heart.

In my left ventricle they are reborn as tender calves,
as wobbly-legged foals, as newborn pups snuggled together.
They are fed and nurtured by the people in red and blue and fed
on milk with a touch of mead and quickly they grow.

From my left atrium they come stampeding forth –
all the cattle with their cow bells ringing with names like
Red Joy and Red Passion and Red Horned and Red Creative One.
All the horses shaking their red manes swishing their red tails.
All the hounds outrunning their young whippers-in.
The people in blue and red cheer them on.

They are the arrows from the bow
of the Hunter in the Heart of my Heart,
the sound of the blood in my veins rushing
from death to birth to death and back to birth again.

This poem was inspired by Saint Mechtilde’s descriptions of visiting the House of the Heart and by my introduction to journeying into my body with my spiritual mentor, Jayne Johnson, a practice she learnt from Arnold Mindell, author of The Shaman’s Body and Working with the Dreaming Body. These two elements have helped me deepen my understanding of how my heart is now one with the Sacred Heart of Gwyn and He now resides there.