While navigating through life, I have left little pieces of my bleeding, pulsating heart strewn along the road on either side, never to be rejoined; only to be remembered; and so have lost much of my innocence. It seemed the only choice at the time; to progress and to move forward. Such is the human condition as I find it. I would imagine that many have had many more and larger chunks of their heart torn away by forces too big and too powerful to fight … and time –it seems— is always of the essence: once lost never to be reclaimed. So what are we to do? How much ripping and tearing can the heart take until only the space the heart once occupied remains and we become a cold shell of the man we once were? Can we –like the Phoenix– ascend from the ashes? Can new, fresh sprigs of grass representing a new life, a new birth be reborn anew in each and every person? Or shall we just continue on the heartless dirge pretending all is well, or simply stuff the pain down a deep memory hole hoping that it will never rear its ugly head again? Or should we relive the pain again this new day in a new way so that we can process it thoroughly with our new wiser eyes to finally deal the death blow to the power it has over today’s joy?