If I look carefully, I see a relationship between things that are not obviously related.  This happens often when contemplating the plant world and any interaction between plants and humans.  So, after research into the mysterious aspects of the heart center, also known as the Heart Chakra, I feel a connection unfolding between the heart centers of humans and flowers. It might sound a bit fantastical. But then I’m combining the ancient leanings towards the mystical with the plant world, which are often spectacular inventions of the mind.  Bear with me and discover for yourself a rich fantasy living outside our doors.

Looking at Love through the Energy of the Heart

An expression of a stream of energy, Love is felt in the body but also within the space that’s called the Heart Chakra. When experiencing emotions, we recall memories that seem to come from our heart, the center of energy in our bodies, indeed the center of life.

On the other hand, a flower is also an organ (of a plant).  A flower could be seen as a heart, though not visible until the plant is mature enough. When a flower emerges, it expresses life force, beauty, and the desire to continue life, to reproduce itself for its next generation.

And like a human Heart, a flowering plant cannot continue life if its purpose is interrupted.  Thus, like a flower, the heart is an engendering organ.  It creates the space for emotions and memory.  In the heart lies the tendency to inform and support all functions of thoughts and emotions.

I believe that inclinations of the heart to encourage life are manifestations of love.  For what is love but the cultivation of life?

What Does the energy of Love Create?

There’s a profound need for connection between humans and the natural world. Long, long ago, there was fear of nature. But as humans gathered into organized living, and looked to seers and philosophers and religion, their cultural attitudes began to be expressed through the natural world around them, the plants, and particularly flowers.

My way of looking at Love through the Energy of the Heart is presented in a cameo of hearts, the human Heart Chakra and the Flower, or heart of a plant.  In my point of view, the legends of the West and East converge in nature.  I’m delighted by what I see: all cultures cherish flowers and embue them with human emotions and ideals of beauty.

What is Heart Chakra?

The term Heart Chakra was transferred many years ago from Sanskrit into English. Just think of it as a term often interpreted and re-interpreted, especially in the West! As writer Shiva Rea points out, the emotional Heart is a central idea in many ancient cultures, especially in connection with sacred ceremonies.

As a concept, the Heart Chakra does not denote a single organ, but rather a center of energy.  The idea comes from ancient Hindu writings of the Vedas.  As such it refers to the unseen, untraceable energy produced by a living organism or human being in the act and process of living, and the many human actions, such as breathing, thinking, remembering, calculating, working, walking, talking, eating and drinking, loving and receiving love.

 The Meaning of Subtle Body

As a phrase, Heart Chakra might, or might not, be meaningful to you. For a more Western interpretation, thinking of it this way might help: “chakra” is understood as both an internal and an external force.  Chakra stands for the real presence of energy at the center—the spiritual power center—of our bodies. Not a physical thing, it’s a holding space.  It’s where you show up for you, your presence in the world, in your life.  This space that distinguishes our life as human beings from all other life on the planet is sometimes called our subtle body.

Though we can’t see or touch it, we attribute meaning to the subtle body.  I think of the subtle body as a holding station, a space where emotions and the life force co-mingle, creating out of ether that which maybe expressed or held in perpetuity.  Subtle, rather than visible and solid, is mysterious, or sensed. It is, significantly, the spiritual or non-material body.  Your subtle body is your personal energy or the vibrations you exhibit.  A person’s subtle body is felt or understood by others, as a kind of indirect language.

A Flower’s Center of Energy

The center of energy in a flower is also love.   A perspective from ancient times, world-wide, when all material things were seen as an expression of the gods, flowers were said to be born as, or to resemble, or come from, a specific personality.

Therefore,  a Flower can have the reputation of a human-like, mythical character, possessing the qualities of love that our heart is capable of.  Saying that, I’m thinking of the expression of beauty, an expectant patience, serving the life process and its next generation—qualitites of the Flower awaiting pollination.

Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of Love, was said to bestow scent on the herb Marjoram (Origanum majorana).  Ancient Egyptians saw Marjoram as the expression of purest Love. The herb’s character is thought of as personifying unbridled optimism.

Thus the character of a Flower allows us to imagine, be creative, or strive for perfection, the love we desire, a paradise on earth.

My Conclusions, so far…

I find it fascinating that our hearts possess at least two extraordinary powers—the physical and the subtle, or ethereal.  So, I’ve begun to research what’s understood about the more mysterious or obscure aspects we call emotive or psychic.

But guess what?  “Emotive” and “psychic” are two known concepts that are miles down the line from the actual experience of our heartbeat.  This is a kind of concatonation we often use without considering the deeper meanings that are available and more helpful if we are looking for connection and relationship.

The Heart Chakra holds loving attitudes and conditionings we gather along the journey from birth to death.

This Chakra or energy center is partly responsible for our sense of well-being, our center of memory and relationship with love. The Heart Chakra has a giving attitude—towards others and to ourselves as individual beings. But this is not charity, it is love, the life force which creates space for life to continue.

Viewing Nature through Ancient Writings

I feel a special affinity for ancient writings and beliefs as they increase my admiration of the ways we view nature. And the continuity of adoration of nature’s beauty. Flowers speak to us of love now.  But they have always represented our emotions.  Look into the face of a flower and see.

Especially now in Summer, in the peak of blooming season, the very special attention we give to beauty allows us to bask in its fleeting naure.  The brightness of sunlight on our skin might signal relief from the doldrums of everyday life in which we strive for release.

So how do different kinds of flowers contribute to upliftment, relaxation of tension and the mending of a sorrowful heart? Read about the Flowers of Summer, here.

Notes:

See my review of a program, Listening to the Heart by David Crow, on this page.

Resources include:

Tending the Heart Fire / Shiva Rea, 2014. Published by Sounds True, Boulder, Colorado

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