Hi Peter,

Thanks for your reply. What you said makes sense…that when exploring what this “black heart” means to me that I shouldn’t wholly identify with it. I think part of why I’m still trying to make sense of it, is that I felt a sense of shame when I saw the note, like my stomach dropped. Almost a gut reaction of “how could someone think that I had a black heart? I look like a nice person and this woman doesn’t even know me.” Somehow this note went against how I define myself physically, in that I generally try to appear as a nice person and I want to look “likeable”. Once I got over that initial reaction I thought about it more deeply and how we associate black with being “negative.” Once I thought about it more deeply and read some random internet articles about black hearts, I interpreted the “black heart” that she saw as perhaps deep down, my heart is a void of energy that can’t be affected by social conditioning. That beyond my external social conditioning, deep down my heart is pure, and the color or non-color of black could be perceived as pure because it is the opposite of white, which is also a pure color in my mind. So I reframed how I initially perceived her note to me, that she saw I had a pure heart, void of social conditioning that will need prayers in this world. That, or I just have an evil black heart haha. Either way, it’s just interesting to think about and I’m not identifying with it one way or another.