Love and anatomy

Yesterday morning in yoga class, we did namaskar parsvakonasana. It's a pose that requires you to put your hands into prayer position as you twist over your bended knee. One of the objectives is to try and place your hands in the middle of your chest. Your thumbs, ideally, should brush against your sternum.

While in the pose, I got to thinking...

Our bodies are fairly symmetrical organisms. There are even studies that say facial symmetry is an indicator of beauty and worthiness for mating. Except for some organs and a few metres worth of intestines, our bodies are chock full of pairs. Do the inventory - there are lots of twos in you and all of them are placed an equal-ish distance apart. Eyes. Arms. Lungs. Kidneys. Feet...

In fact, if someone were to cut your brain in half, there would be two equal parts making a mirror image of each other on the table.

But then there's the heart, the seat of our emotional selves. It's funny-shaped. Asymmetrical. Located left of centre. It cannot be cut into two equal halves. It has no twin on the other side of the chest. 

Is it any wonder then, that love is such a hard thing to find/manage/keep/end? Maybe our anatomy is telling us that Plato's theory of the soulmate was right all along.

We try to remedy the situation by drawing symmetrical hearts instead, but our real hearts remain ineffably off-centre - as frequently do our affections. But I don't think we have reason to despair over our awkward hearts. As funny-shaped as they may be, they are made of strong, solid muscles that keep every square inch of your body moving forward. So much power in such a small thing.

Is it any wonder then, that love is such an intense emotion?

P.S. En passant, I have now been at the studio long enough to notice that the Saturday morning crowd is decidedly more Westmount than the rest-of-the-week crowd. Let it be said - there are some very fancy handbags out there.