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The second week seems to be the week when “the stuff rises” so to speak, and in my case this was most certainly the case. It took the form of finding myself almost uncontrollably angry at our course leader…poor Lee. This exploded one day and I attacked her verbally, an assault in the face of which she stood calmly firm and looked at me with increased attention. We subsequently had a chat about it and I realized I was projecting an old hatred born of fear onto her, and having seen it, as is the way with these things…it collapsed and I was free of it, important in what was to happen next.

Kindly, I think partly as a result of this, Lee started in our meditation sessions to direct us to working on the heart center (heart chakra as it’s called in the Indian Tradition). This for me was the crowning experience of my whole visit and I came to realize just how helpful the whole chakra system really is in helping us to unblock old wounds. I suppose I have here to own that, on reflection, in spite of many attempts to be otherwise, my heart still remained closed. This is a terrible condition and one I suspect very common in the West, for if the heart is closed, then “loving” is not really possible. We may seek “love” as hard as we like but “loving,” loving life, loving people, loving all experience, eludes us. A most painful condition that arises I suspect from very early birth or childhood traumatic experience in which the heart closes in order to survive. And when the heart closes out of these traumatic contacts with the world it builds around itself a hard casing like an old walnut that has sat beside the fire all winter. Hard and very difficult to crack open.