The Matter of the Heart
The Matter of the Heart
And the Heart of Matter
This week’s post is inspired by a post by KW Norton Borders titled “Faith, Persistence, Credibility and Patience”, responding to Substack’s writer’s prompt for 2024 “We Are Called Upon To Rise.” In her writing she shares a quote from Rumi,
“Only from the heart can you touch the sky”
and a poem from Emily Dickinson,
“We never know how high we are
Till we are called to rise;
And then, if we are true to plan,
Our statures touch the skies.
The heroism we recite
Would be a daily thing,
Did not ourselves the cubits warp
For fear to be a king.”
From these words she challenges us to realize that we will never be what we long to be or what calls to us—whatever that is—until we start doing it. She also offers the realization that we alone are “not the doers or the architects” of our longings, that “there is another force in charge. .” that “anything . . any of us, may think or write or speak-comes from a far higher authority.” KW Norton Borders reminds us that “The great force which drives the universe - which creates us all and which is the architect of all - exists because it is freely given” and that it is our responsibility to “help give voice to it.”
Her quote from Rumi reminds me that it is only from the heart that we can rise to the potentials that are ours. It is only from the heart that we can dream a new dream.
You can read KW Norton Borders’ complete post here
Several years ago, I had a dream which said, “When there is a conflict of priorities, one must follow the heart.” Jungian analyst, James Hillman (The Thought of the Heart and the Soul of the world), in his discussion of the groundbreaking work of Henry Corbin —scholar, philosopher, theologian, and champion of the transformative power of the imagination and of transcendent reality in the individual—states quite clearly that the heart’s characteristic action is not feeling but sight. Hillman in discussing Corbin, says the thought of the heart is the thought of images. The heart is the seat of the imagination. Imagination is the authentic voice of the heart. So, if we speak from the heart we must speak imaginatively. The heart is the place of true imagining. Hillman points out that when we personalize the heart as simply personal, confessional, subjective reflection, we drive the imagination into exile, into sexual fantasy or metaphysical conception or into objective data, none of which reside in the heart.
Hillman goes on to say that the intention of the heart creates as real the figures of the imagination. The heart knows that the images we think we make up are actually presented to us as authentic creatures. Without the gift of the heart’s imaginal sight, we misunderstand the meaning of the images in our dreams or the persons of our imaginings and fantasies, or that which appears in a shamanic journey. We think they are subjectively real, that we made them up, figments of our imagination, apparitions—when we mean that they are imaginatively real. Or we think they are externally real as hallucinations when we mean they are essentially real. We confuse the imaginal with the subjective and internal. We mistake the essential for external and objective.
Yes, the heart is an organ of feeling. But it is also the seat of the soul’s imagination and our ability to see the imaginal realm. This makes the imaging heart central to a spiritual or symbolic life and raises our understanding of our compulsions and desires to their spiritual and symbolic meaning.
Of all the images that could show up, we must ask why this image or that image. I believe that the images that show up are the ones that best describe the conditions of our soul. These images show what is vibrating there. They offer us an opportunity to interact with them and not only heal the wounds they might reveal, they also present the opportunity to bring into existence that which the soul longs to live, the wholeness that we are—the “treasure hard to find.” If we are to do the healing work that they offer us, we must view them as real, for essentially, they are. They describe what is fundamental and basic to the soul. They show what is living there. This is the spirit that lives in matter. This is the matter of the heart. This is what the heart knows.
I dream
I am walking with a female psychoanalyst. I put my hand over a spot on her back at her heart area. I feel the energy of a wound or illness. As I hold my hand there, I begin to feel the energy moving, as if I am extracting or healing this energy. This experience intensifies. She begins to convulse. She falls to the ground as if having a seizure, eyes rolling back into her head, contorting. I become somewhat anxious, wondering if she is going to be okay. She goes back in time to where she falls off a tricycle, hits her head, and dies.
Suddenly she quiets, eyes return. She gets up and says, “I haven’t felt this good after ten heart surgeries,” I say, “I just noticed that when I put my hand on your back, I felt dark and heavy energy there and the healing just started happening.”
The above dream suggests that vibrating in the object or in matter, in this case the heart—is information of a spiritual or energetic nature, information of a transpersonal nature insomuch as the information transcends ego-consciousness and rational processes. The object is not just a metaphor, nor just a symbol onto which we project meaning. Nor is it a belief or a hypothesis about a spiritual realm. Rather the spirit realm is an empirical fact supported by personal experience. Hillman has suggested that the idea of withdrawing projections—the major goal of analytical practice—could become irrelevant once we recognize that much of what we call projection is an attempt by the psyche to experience things beyond ourselves as imaginal processes.
Several writers (Hillman, Cheetham, Corbin, Kryder) state that we have lost the imaginal and with it we have lost the aliveness of our own souls. Tom Cheetham in his book Green Man, Earth Angel suggests that “all dualism of the modern world stem from the loss of the mundus imaginales: matter is cut off from spirit, sensation from intellect, subject from object, inner from outer, myth from history, the individual from the divine.” The imaginal world is not imaginary or unreal. While the imaginary is the product of personal fantasy and is therefore subjective, the imaginal, on the other hand, gives us, as stated previously, access to a transpersonal content.
This transpersonal content has objective reality even though it may not correspond to any historical fact or physical reality. The imaginal realm or the mundus imaginalis exists independent of those who become aware of it. The imaginal realm possesses a truth that has a universal validity that the products of our private fantasies do not achieve. Through dreams, meditations, active imagination, and shamanic journeying we have access to the imaginal realm, to the intermediate realm of the subtle bodies. We have access to the realm of real presences located between the material world of matter and the world of Spirit. Could it be that the heart connects us with the imaginal space that allows us once again to see the realities of the invisible, to see the subtle energies that carry the wisdom hidden in matter?
When we split off matter from spirit or mind from body and elevate spirit and mind to a superior place over body and matter, something in us dies. We suffer a loss of connection, not only to nature, but to our own souls.
Ancient traditions have long held that the heart is the seat of the soul. Vibrating in the heart are not only feelings and emotions, but memories and images of our past, our ancestral stories, early traumatic events, our wounds and painful places as well as images of our future.
For modern man, the life of the imaginal is born the moment we recognize that outer images and events are carriers and therefore patterns of energy at work within us. Each image reflects is own consciousness, putting wisdom, divine intelligence, transpersonal reality back into nature and matter, back into the object, even the object of our desires.
Here is my painting honoring the healing and transforming powers of the heart.
From a shamanic perspective, we can journey into the heart and discover what is hidden there. Here is a guided journey into the heart to see what wounds you hold there that need healing or to discover a life that wants to live.
Guided Journey to the Heart
Or, if you prefer, you can use the script below. I suggest that you read over the text to get familiar with the journey before actually do the journey.
Journey to the Heart
Find a place where you will not be disturbed. You might want to listen to some shamanic drumming or journey music.
Take some deep breaths and allow yourself to drift into a light trance or relaxed state. Start your music. Bring your attention to your heart and breathe in and out through your heart space. Ask for a power animal or spirit guide to accompany you and notice what shows up. Place your intention to journey to your heart to discover what your heart knows, what is hidden there that needs to be healed or something that you heart know that will be useful for your life at this time. Get clear on your intention. What would you like to know from your heart?
Imagine that you are walking out the front door of your heart into the field around you in space. Feel the grass beneath your feet. Off in the distance you see a large tree. The tree calls to you and as you approach the tree, you and your guide state your intention to journey to your heart. The tree opens and you step inside and begin to journey down through the roots of the tree into the shaman’s lower world. As you step out you see off in the distance a large mountain. The mountain calls to you and as you approach the mountain you see an opening with the number 4 above it. This is your 4th chakra, the place of your heart. You and your guide enter. Ask your heart to show you what you are holding in your heart, what is hidden there. Is it some hurt? Some pain? Some regret? Or is it some future that longs to live? If it is some hurt or wound, ask your heart what you need to do to heal or call upon spirit to heal the wound. Notice what comes to you. If you remember some memory, ask how that memory can be helpful in addressing a situation in your current life. Notice what comes to you. Do you need to forgive someone? Do you need forgiveness? If you notice some future that longs to live, ask how you might connect to that future and how you might manifest it in your life. Notice what questions come to you, what images show up and ask to understand their meaning. What message does your heart have for you? Receive the messages. Imagine that you are downloading this into your field.
As you prepare to return, thank your guide for accompanying you. Thank your heart for accepting you and speaking with you. Now journey back to the tree roots and up into the truck of the tree and back into your room and back into the front door of your hear and into your body.
Wiggle your fingers and toes, take a deep breath. Pat your heart with your hands and open your eyes. When you open your eyes, you are back in ordinary reality, wide awake and alert.
In a journal, make notes on your journey and your experience or write your journey out in detail. Reflect on your journey. Let it continue to speak to you.
Leave a comment of share your journey on the chat.
This post is an excerpt from my book, The Other Man in Me. You can read the entire chapter, The Matter of the Heart and the Heart of Matter, where I discuss the power of the heart to affect matter at
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I did this journey this morning and thought I would share it.
I went to my heart chakra and entered it. It was brighter than it had ever been before. The glowing white ‘stone of my knowing’ that had been given to me by my Grandmother helping spirit, is shining brightly and lighting the room, I call Bear to be with me, and I ask my heart to show me what is hidden here that I need to know at this time. Everything goes dark, and I start falling down, down through darkness. (At this point I paused the tape as I knew I would need more time.) I finally land back in my heart chakra only now it is very dark. I look around and in the back there is a ghost-like figure dancing menacingly. She is shrouded in black, but all of her bones are visible. I ask her who she is, and she replies “I am your fear.“
What do I need to know about you before I get rid of you? I’m done with you hiding in my heart.
“I am your fear of the dark. You had fears of the dark, and you projected them inside. You projected your fear of the outer dark, inside, and became afraid of your own dark. You became fearful of your own womb ---your place of creativity; fearful of your night ---the dark that is like the fertile, moist earth that envelops and germinates the seeds.”
I grab the spector’s wrists and take her to the garden outside my heart chakra. I call Mother Earth, and Bear is at my side. I ask, how do I mulch her, my fear of the dark?
“With light”
I reach up to my eighth chakra and gather a handful of light and forcefully throw it at the spector of my fear. The light explodes her into a cloud of ash that settles on the garden to fertilize it.
... and then twilight descends on the garden of my heart, and night falls... tree frogs begin to chirp and sing. The evening flowers begin to pop open into bloom ---evening primrose, and a large white, cactus flower opens up and seems to glow in the dark. Jaguar moves into the garden from the edge of the dark forest and I can hear owls calling in the distance. All is still, and as my eyes adjust to the dark, and I can see in the dark.
I go back into my heart chakra with Bear, and my white stone is now glowing and casting a soft green light about the chakra room. I ask if there is more I need to know, and I see two small children, who I sometimes see in my heart chakra, curled up together sleeping. Bear says “Sleeping is healing, nurturing and restful. A lot is happening while you sleep.“
I get an image of bear hibernating around a nursing cub. “In the dark, in the night, you are feeding your dreams ---who you are becoming, just like you nurse your child during the night, sometimes only half awake and without full awareness.”
I ask what else I need to know and tears begin to roll down my cheeks.
“Grief and sorrows are healed and transformed in the dark.“ As the tears start to drop from my cheeks they each burst into a spark of light that floats off into the dark.
I turn and walk to the door of my heart chakra, and the pre-dawn light is spreading across the garden. I thank Bear. I thank Mother Earth, and I return.
I am grateful for the many gifts of this journey.