Poet and retired biologist Brigitte Goetze digs into her scientific background to offer readers something beautiful and wholly original with her poem “How We Come to Understand or the Heart, the Right Brain, and the Left Brain Muse about Science’s Most Famous Equation”. She told The Dewdrop, “The poem ventures into the intricacies of heart and mind when dealing with scientific truths, often represented as equations, abstracted from a vast domain of particulars. The equation underlying this poem is e=mc2.”
How We Come to Understand or the Heart, the Right Brain, and the Left Brain Muse about Science’s Most Famous Equation The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of... We know the truth not only by the reason, but by the heart. -Blaise Pascal The left brain re-presents ...the gestalt which it has received from the right brain... the left hemisphere[‘s]... offer must be used in service of what the right hemisphere knows and sees. -Iain McGilchrist, The Master and its Emissary The heart reaches higher than the head, grasps from the ether a shimmering, a diamond of light just barely within its reach, pulls the glimmering down, holds the marvel in front of the chest. The right brain watches the illumination transform the left hand into a green, the right into a blue angel, gazing, filled with the awe of a golden heart, as the c2 of Shakti/Shiva dances energy into photons, sparks spinning off the vibrating orb, some flying to a star near the end of the galaxy, others traversing the vast spaces between electrons and atoms’ nuclei, landing in Earth’s hot core. The left brain, entranced by the shedding scintilla, akin to marble chips dropping from a sculpture's chisel, tracks, now engaged like a hound on scent, the emerging pattern. What is it exactly? A sphere? A three-dimensional mandala? Some form of intricate diatom? No, it is smoother, a curled catfish shark? Oh, look: it unfolds, replaces its tail in favor of four limbs that stretch into extremities able to, oh, yes, feel into the furthest regions of mind and, oh, yes, now, going right into the heart.
Brigitte Goetze
Brigitte Goetze, a retired biologist and goat farmer, likes to listen to the never-ending conversation between the biological and spiritual dimensions of life. Understanding the influence of natural forces on all-that-is offers new perspectives for our challenging times. Her website can be found at: brigittegoetzewriter.com.