Sacred Heart

Vicky asked me about the meaning of this image, which I used in my previous entry based on the quote by Frederick Boecher. 

I'm not certain about the exact origins of this image, I'm sorry to say.  It looks to me like a book with pages in the shape of a heart.  I may be thinking this, though, because for our first wedding anniversary, my husband gave me such a handmade book, a book of his heart-thoughts.  That is probably what drew me to this image in the first place.

I found the image in an article called "A Medieval Cordial" by Christopher Bamford.  The article is subtitled "Intoxication of the Heart" and it is about women mystics and the point in history that thoroughly recognized the divine feminine, such as Sophia and the Blessed Virgin.  The women mystics were inspired by the writings of St. Bernard, among others, who wrote that the secrets of Jesus' Heart "lie[ ] visible through the clefts of his body; visible too the great mystery of his love, and the bowels of his mercy."

It is actually quite a fascinating time in history, the 12th and 13th Century, when Christian religious thought was being influenced by Ismaili, Manichaean, and Sufi teachings, as well as the Troubadours, who were responsible for spreading the concept of romantic love.  Thus Christianity got all wound up in the erotic, which created some gorgeous poetry.

Women mystics had visions about Christ's love, and the heart was central in these visions.  For instance, Mechthild of Hackeborn saw the Lord opening the wound of his "sweet" heart and said:  "Behold the greatness of my love."  Then the Lord united his sweet Heart with her soul's heart, giving her the "graces of contemplation."

Beatrice of Nazareth heard the Lord say to her, "Can a person and his or her heart be separated from each other?"

And Gertrude of Helfta, on her deathbed, saw Jesus' divine Heart "in which every kind of good is hidden."  Jesus' heart "opened itself to her as a paradise of joy and bliss."

I use the idea and the image to convey that writing comes from the heart of the writer and that the heart needs to be listened to.  

I'm also very drawn to the religious mystics because writing feels like a spiritual act to me, even if I'm writing about ugly or disturbing things*.  When I write, it feels like I'm accessing my soul, my center, that which is connected to something beyond. 

I won't go so far, as the mystics did, to call this "something" God, but there is something cosmic about it; that's the way it feels to me, anyway. 

This is a subject I will come back to again and again, because I'm trying to understand it myself. 

Gertrude of Helfta once wrote, "I have never found a human friend to whom I would dare tell all I know; the human  heart is too small to bear it." 

Isn't this powerful? 

In my writing, I want to push the envelope on what I think the human heart can bear.  If I break the heart of the reader, through this breaking and subsequent mending, the reader becomes "something new."  I want to force my reader through a door of transformation.  This is where my writing goals are at the moment.

*The malevolent energies and destructive forces which have been abroad in our time tell us how strong is the evil that lies mixed with the good in humanity's heart.

*There are swift elusive moments which every real artist knows, and every deep lover experiences, when the faculty of concentration unites with the emotion of joy and creates an indescribable sense of balanced being.  Such moments are of a mystical character. 

* When you first face the mystery which is at the heart's core and in the mind's essence, you know nothing about it other than that it is the source of your being and that it possesses a power and intelligence utterly transcending your own.  Yet you feel that it draws your love and, in your best moments, inspires your character.

*You feel the Presence of something higher than yourself, wise, noble, beautiful, and worthy of all reverence.  Yet it is really yourself--the best part come at last into unfoldment and expression.

*Because it comes from within, it comes with its own authority.  When it is "the real thing," you will not have to question, examine or verify its authenticity, will not have to run to others for their appraisal of its worth or its rejection as a pseudo-intuition.  You will know overwhelmingly what it is in the same way that you know who you are.

*Each glimpse brings a grace.  It may be a message or an awakening, a revelation or a warning, a reconciliation or a confirmation, a strengthening or a mellowing.

*The truth is there plainly before you and deeply sensed within you.

*Each glipse is not just a repeat performance; it is a fresh new experience.

*When you retreat to your center, you have retreated to the point where the Glimpse of the truth may be had.

 

--From the notebooks of Paul Brunton