(UN)CONSCIOUS HEART

Missive #12 - Transcribed Poetic Dictation with Reference

[“Woken” from a sleepless rest, I heard this recitation begin and moved to the other room to write it down. Several of the below numbers came from directed reference to notes I’d taken over the past year (especially with regards to the 2014 Parnia study). Typically I am given exact dictations which happen to be peculiarly “accurate” to their source material, though I am occasionally instructed to refer to a source. Perhaps when my unconscious memory reservoir(s) are com-promised? I am left, as I usually am, in a state of wonder and curiosity~] Received 7/16/2023 | ~4am

(UN)CONSCIOUS HEART
Even when asleep, our heart beats
And our lungs draw air.
This body is a miracle; imagine
Having to consciously control every
Automatic function necessary for life.
The heart beats about 100,000 times
In a day; 35 million times a year,
And often more than 2.5 billion beats
In a lifetime. Our lungs some 16
Breaths per minute, 960 an hour,
23,040 a day; of those, most of
Us may be lucky enough to consciously
Oversee maybe 5, 10, or 50.
Can you consciously breathe while
Consciously blinking, swallowing,
Monitoring your heart rate, releasing
Tension in your neck and shoulders,
Drinking water and eating food?
While walking, tasting, digesting,
Moving your tongue, perceiving depth,
Regulating blood pressure from moment
To moment to avoid fainting whenever
You stand from sitting? Adjusting
Your eyes to various lighting conditions,
Producing saliva, and coordinating
Muscles, coughing when food goes down
The wrong way? We are complex,
Finely tuned organisms made up of
Some 1 or 10 or 30 or 37.2 Trillion cells
Vastly more than the one to four hundred billion
Stars in the Milky Way Galaxy
More even than our neighbor Andromeda's
1 trillion-odd number of stars.
Many of our systems are called involuntary.
This is a good thing for us.
Lest we forget, the unconscious is
Our greatest ally in life. Reliable,
Faithful; endeavoring to keep us living
So we can think, or perhaps choose
Not to. Do not worry about what
We cannot control. The graciousness
Of the Unconscious is seen in its
Allowing us to consciously breathe, or
Withhold breath, for a time, before
Playtime is over and the wheel is
Strongarmed back into wiser hands.
How resilient and delicate our embodiments
Are. Awareness is semi-conscious, even
During Sudden Cardiac Arrest. Of 330 survivors
of 2060 Cardiac Arrest Events, forty-six
Recalled events after "losing" consciousness.
One had a verifiable period of
Conscious awareness during which time
Cerebral function was not expected (Parnia, 2014).
The Relationship between awareness and un/consciousness
Is a moving target; one never steps in the
Same river twice. The unconscious is
Never not present. Perhaps the same could
Be said of the conscious. Simultaneous dancers
In an amorphic landscape of un~conscious
Step two-three, Step two-three, shuffle
Ball change; step, six, seven, eight!
Round and round we go, a loop or spiral
Labyrinth or maze—or neither!
There is a Third too in conscious~unconscious
A funny character, a bit ephemeral at
Times, multiplicative and imaginary.
The square root of negative one is
Not so easy to describe, and yet is
Essential in the field of electromagnetism.
We fall unconscious within seconds
of Cardiac Arrest due to malfunction
In our electrical system, but "death"
Waits a whole 4, 6, 8, even 10 or
More minutes afterwards.
Perhaps the goal is not to become
More or less unconscious (if such
a thing is even possible), but
Rather to cultivate the quality of
Our conscious awareness, and attention,
And the healthiness and humor of the
Relationship between our conscious and
Unconscious aspects, dimensions, or fields.
The imaginary number is called complex,
Versus the Real. The real axis is the
Electric field, while the magnetic field is an
Imaginary part of an imaginary axis.
The "I" or the 'j' is the current or the root
Which takes us back to the root of it all
Thank the automatic, thank the involuntary.
Focus instead on the role you have to
Play, which is uniquely the field of
Conscious~un~conscious preconscious
Pre~unconscious liminal spaces and
Imaginary realms; where the real and
the complex meet with the Z axis
And seed every possible miracle into
Existence, fleeting and eternal, constant
Ex-stases of parallel reality void
Trances of ancestral becomingness, never
Not began and begun and beginning
Circling back to the topic at hand
And holding, gently, the breath at the brim
Of life; Shiva says: "With intangible
Breath in center of forehead, as this reaches
The heart at the moment of sleep, have
Direction over dreams and over death itself."
We wish to become lucid, to wake
Into the dream, rather than from it.
What we reject, pursues us; and
What we pursue, rejects us. Tat tvam asi.
Be careful not to flee insomnia only
To conjure up an insomniac lucidity.
Every dance has lulls; every language
Has pause, for breath, for silence, for
Stillness. "Be still, and know, THAT I
AM, GOD." The stillness is a gift.
The dreamless sleep is a gift. Lucidity is only
Lucidity when well-rested, however
THAT may look. Close your eyes,
Swallow your saliva, breathe into your
(UN)Conscious heart, which you can
Consciously control only in~directly,
And typically through the breath, in or
Out; faster or slower. Give it a rest
and just be.

---

Strawberry Heart, Locally Grown (2023)