Lift Up Your Heads, O You Gates

Unsolicited, the thought came through my mind,

"Lift up your heads, O you Gates!

 And be lifted up, O you ancient doors."

I wasn't quite sure where it came from. It marched into my head like a victorious army processing back into it's hometown, building a bridge to something else that has recently been present in my thoughts. I've been reading about the habitual connections of the synapses in our brains. Discoveries in neuroscience over only the last few decades suggest that a healthy mental state requires perpetual interaction with other people's right brain. This gives experiences of relational narratives that create thinking templates. Once our brain's synapses have fired according to a certain template, they are significantly more likely to fire the same way again and again. Unused, many areas of the mind simply shut off eventually, like an abandoned, overgrown neighborhood on the outskirts of town.

Autumn Composition,  Deduar

Common example: "I don't know how to trust anyone, because I'm so used to finding people unreliable or untrustworthy." Even when we come across people who would break our mental stereotypes, we shut them out, because we're following the somewhat implicit neural template. The physical pathways in our brain literally form ruts. Once they're formed, according to some research, most people never change them. Although, unlike at least most other beings on the planet, humans do have the ability to re-form these pathways.

The psychological distress of many can be correlated with the literal lack of physical connectivity between the right (emotional, relational) and left (linear, logical) hemispheres of their brain. It could even be said that people whose brains don't integrate enough with other people's brains, will not be able to form healthy patterns of thought,  and have trouble integrating their own brain, as well as nerve connectivity to "the extended brain", or visceral organs (the heart, lungs and gastrointestinal system), eventually causing physical sickness in some. This gives new meaning to the old wisdom that you shouldn't have a divided heart, or a divided mind.

"Lift up your heads, O you Gates!

 And be lifted up, O you ancient doors."

It's originally from a song, written thousands of years ago, actually by King David, returning victorious from war, with the ark of the covenant, restoring authority, the life of the people, and communion with God back into his city.

For the first time in a long time, I've found myself venturing out into pathways I've left unexplored. After years of trauma, and subsequent hiding in fear, I'm daring myself to love again, to trust. What a welcome verse. What a bold procession. O, dearest hope, that I could find the right levers, that I could find the courage & stamina to join the song and open those gates.