Heart Journey
All is quiet as light slowly seeps into the sky. The silhouettes of redwoods reaching high welcome the approaching dawn. With orange cotton cord, I create a labyrinth on the lawn, building it path by path, one five-foot length at a time. In the dim early morn, it’s hard to distinguish cord from grass, which adds to the intensity of the task. As I proceed, the labyrinth widening, a woman emerges from a nearby lodge wherein guests are barely beginning to stir. Drum in hand, she strikes a steady rhythm while walking the perimeter of the heart-shaped lawn. The sound surrounds me like a prayer and permeates my being. As though entering a trance, I begin breathing rhythmically. Pulsating with breath, I resonate with primal energy. Together, the woman and I birth a labyrinth. The heartbeat of the drum carries us on our journey as ever-increasing light illuminates the sky.
The preceding narrative describes an experience of creating a labyrinth at a retreat center in Mill Valley, California. Each day, I arose before dawn and prepared a new 30- to 40-foot labyrinth using several sets of Labyrinth in a Bag. On this particular day, I was creating a 5-circuit, heart-shaped labyrinth centered within the heart-shaped lawn. The drumming, though unplanned, added a depth of sacredness to the process. The ceaseless thrum of the drum entrained my body, psyche, and spirit in ceremony. I felt attuned to the very pulse of Earth and experienced a seamless unity with all that is. It was, for me, an expression of synchronicity—the rhythms of the drum, Earth, breath, and heart converging.
The heart, not simply an organ that pumps blood throughout the body, is a source of emotion and intuition. It influences how we experience and perceive the world and greatly affects our health and well-being. The heart, in fact, may be considered a perceptual organ, containing 40,000 specialized neurons that can sense, feel, learn, and remember. Researchers call this the heart brain, which can communicate important information to the brain through neural pathways (1).
Furthermore, the electromagnetic field of the heart is stronger than that of the brain, creating a heart field that extends beyond our bodies. The heart field is sensitive to meaningful interconnections and communication with people, other species, and the eco-field at large. Stephen Buhner calls this non-kinesthetic feeling sense heart-field perception (2). This energetic capacity can be used to attune to the rhythms of Nature and to emotionally align with others, human and non-human alike. HeartMath Institute explores the role of this capacity in creating social and global coherence (3).
Your heart can soar or sink, ache or sing, and be filled with joy or sorrow. But perhaps the most vital experience of the heart is love. It is felt in the heart chakra and processed in the brain wherein, Amit Goswami explains, it generates brain circuits of love. While these circuits are often cultivated in relationships between two people, they can be propagated among groups of people—locally and nonlocally—through the power of intention (4).
The heart labyrinth I created in Mill Valley was a physical manifestation of the power and possibilities of heart-field perception and the enduring nature of love. Later that morning, twenty of us journeyed through the labyrinth while singing,
There is only love.
There is only love.
There is only, only love.*
For all that is,
(1) Decker, Ed (December 3, 2013). Your Heart and Stomach May Be Smarter Than You Think. Rewire Me. https://www.rewireme.com/insight/your-heart-and-stomach-may-be-smarter-than-you-think/
(2) Buhner, Stephen (2014). Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm: Beyond the Doors of Perception into the Dreaming of Earth. Bear & Company. Rochester, VT.
3) HeartMath Institute (2016). Science of the Heart. Online publication.
https://www.heartmath.org/research/science-of-the-heart/
(4) Goswami, Amit (2011). How Quantum Activism Can Save Civilization: A Few People Can Change Human Evolution. Hampton Roads Publishing Company. Charlottesville, VA..
* This song was created by a group of Vietnam War veterans on a healing journey.
