My healing heart decided it needed me to rest to me, I was exhausted and struggled with it for most of the day. Another lesson about healing, sometimes you have to stop fighting and moving and just surrender to it. I did that late this afternoon, I lay down in a big chair and left the world behind for a few hours, I remember nothing beyond Maria wiping my brow with a damp cloth.

I woke up this evening, had some tuna salad and grapes, and we took Red and walked on a path in a nearby park. I began to return to myself, I came out of the fog. I came to the computer, the words began to flow again, my fingers moved with enthusiasm over my keyboard. This is worse than pain for me, because it renders me helpless and force me to do what I have never done since my heart took sick – surrender, stop fighting. Like letting someone else wipe you, this is another milestone, another surrender of the ego, another in the great exercises of letting go, which I have been doing almost every day. When I was diagnosed. When I went into surgery. When they put stuff in my throat and chest.

When I say these sacred words to my heart and to the world: I must let go now, and free myself from the idea that I am in control of my life, my heart, my soul. Sometimes I am not. Letting go is a profoundly spiritual experience and for me a frightening one. A good one.

I let go this afternoon and went off to a place I have never been, a rest so deep and full I have no memory of it or words to capture it, I felt as if I had been swallowed by a cloud and floated off into space. The doctors call it exhaustion. I am glad to back. I walked a good mile tonight, it felt good and strong to do so. Tonight I will face another round of darkness and asked my heart to help me rest. Tomorrow I will listen to my heart and ask it what it has in store for me on this day, the ninth day since surgery last week.