Affairs of the Heart

And now here is my secret, a very simple secret;
it is only with the heart that one can see rightly,
what is essential is invisible to the eye.
- Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Mr. CFP and I braved yesterday's blowing snow to get to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science's exhibit of Body Worlds - The Original Exhibition & The Story of the Heart.

Yesterday morning I had read Mark Morford's latest article, written about his love of the mystery. It included these two paragraphs:

It's just a hint and a whisper of an idea so far. But it turns out, when measured electromagnetically, the brain isn't the organ that gives off the strongest, most complex or dynamic signal. It's the heart. By a factor of, oh, about 5,000.

In other words, so strong is the heart's signal, so overwhelmingly dominant in the body is its pulsing electro vibe (its rhythmic field "not only envelops every cell of the body, but also extends out in all directions into the space around us," says one summation), it's possible that we all have a completely different powerhouse processor/informational hub, potentially even more illuminating and influential than the mind, the function of which we have yet to begin to conceptualize. How gorgeous is that?

I realized that I wanted to see this Body Worlds exhibition, which would include much about the heart, with the awareness that the heart is more than a mechanical pump. Just like we tend to give the brain all kinds of attributes, acting as though our very "I-ness" resides there, I wondered if I would be able to sense how the heart, in Antoine de Saint-Exupery's words, "sees rightly".




I have to say that it was a challenge, but I was helped by beautiful quotes on large wall hangings in each area of the exhibit. Quotes from Gibran and quotes like the one above by de Saint-Exupery.

Alongside preserved healthy hearts, enlarged hearts and translucent slices of hearts, we also saw posters of many attributes of the heart, from those given in scripture to an acknowledgment by a physician that, truly, one can die from a broken heart.

Doing a search for "heart, religion" brings up about 112 million results. One example: "Search me, O God, and know my heart" from Psalms. For almost-ever, it seems that we have thought of the heart as more than a pump. If the brain is the "I", the personality, the logical part of ourselves, then the heart is the place where we feel - love, sadness, grief. It's the place we look to discern if someone is a good person. Do they have a kind heart?

Maybe we are still in the "earth is flat" realm when we think the heart is more than a pump to keep the body alive.

I don't see any harm there.

If you agree with me, you are a person after my own heart.

If you don't agree, don't break my heart by letting me know.

But then, if you have a change of heart, by all means, tell me.

I will love you, no matter. Cross my heart and hope to die.

Love,

Carol
A bleeding heart liberal