Heartbeat is LIFE
One morning, while standing in our kitchen waiting for water to boil for our morning hot beverages, I found myself drawn into one of the most tender moments of my life.
My husband was several weeks into recovery from unexpected open-heart surgery.
The days and weeks leading up to that moment had held many experiences—the unknown, shock, physical pain, healing, rebuilding, and the quiet adjustments that come with learning a new rhythm after a major life event.
The surgical scar across his chest was still new.
Tender.
Sacred.
Until that morning, I had not touched it.
As we stood together in the kitchen, I gently placed my hands upon his upper arms and moved closer. Without hesitation, he allowed me into that space.
I laid my ear over his heart.
Tenderly.
Reverently.
And I listened.
I felt his heartbeat.
Strong.
Steady.
Alive.
What moved through me in those moments is difficult to fully express in words.
I was not simply hearing his heart.
I was feeling LIFE itself.
Not as an idea.
Not as a philosophy.
Not as something to contemplate.
As a direct experience.
A pulse.
A rhythm.
A movement.
Life moving through him.
Life moving through me.
Life moving through us.
As I listened, something extraordinary happened.
Our heartbeats synchronized.
Our pulses synchronized.
Our very frequencies synchronized.
For a few moments, there was no separation.
There was no story.
No past.
No future.
Only presence.
Only heartbeat.
Only LIFE.
I felt so full of aliveness that words could not contain it.
I did not need to explain the experience.
I did not need to understand it.
I simply allowed it.
I accepted the gift of that moment as though it were all of life itself.
Because in many ways, it was.
Not long afterward, a dear friend embraced me with the same depth of presence.
A long embrace.
A sincere embrace.
One in which I again felt the synchronization of hearts.
The recognition of something larger than the individuals involved.
The same pulse.
The same aliveness.
The same underlying current.
The same emotion that I could only call LOVE, LIFE.
These experiences revealed something already known, yet in a more realized way.
Wholeness is not an idea to achieve.
Unity is not a concept to understand.
They are realities available in the simplest moments when we become present enough to FEEL them.
There were certainly moments throughout this journey when emotions arose.
Moments when old fears briefly appeared.
Yet neither of us chose to build a home there.
Again and again, we returned to trust.
Trust in life.
Trust in the movement of healing.
Trust in what was unfolding.
Trust in LIVING itself.
Rather than asking "Why is this happening?" we found ourselves listening more deeply for what was being revealed.
And what was revealed was beautiful.
Not because the experience was easy.
Not because it was free from challenge.
But because it opened a doorway into a deeper intimacy with LIFE.
What I heard beneath my husband's scar that morning was more than a heartbeat.
It was LIFE announcing its presence.
And in listening to it, I recognized that same LIFE within myself.
Heartbeat to heartbeat.
Pulse to pulse.
Life recognizing itself.
LIVING.
Terri Akaya Malek
