ARTICLE - Heart Metaphors

As regular readers will know I was recently  dealt an existential health lesson, one so obvious that I ought to have known it was a distinct possibility. That the human heart, so central to our continued existence, is an impermanent organ we cannot blithely depend on. Over the last few weeks I've given time and thought to pondering on the heart, on our survival instinct, and how prevalent the heart is as an existential, as well as visual, metaphor. Hearts, it seems, are forever being pierced or pinched.

The heart's state frequently represents our general state of well being. It has its own colour- a vivid bloody red. Symbolically pumping life, great energy and earnest ardour into our love of being. And when we fall in love, the heart has cupid's arrows shot tightly through it. As though our lovelorn human form was designed with a bullseye target etched upon it, awaiting the right arrow. At the nexus of our imaginative being is a virtual heart,that has been wounded by love, and the vicissitudes of life. Yet we can also have a complete change of heart.

If love fails, relationships can descend into all sorts of messy endings. The love of our life suddenly leaves or dies. It is as though our heart is being ripped from within us. We feel the heart is breaking, or is already broken. This fragile ceramic pot, shattering into a hundred fragments as it hits the floor of a great betrayal. For in the imaginal heart lies the repository of great feeling, the present state of our being made flesh. It can feel in one moment that our heart is, or has been, ruthlessly cut out. It can miss, or fail to beat. Faltering in the very presence of surprise and alarm.

In prehistoric times, if you were the victor in battle, you might demonstrate your complete triumph by cutting out your enemies heart from their body, and with it still beating, hold it high so everyone can see it. Bearing witness to the captured heart, its owner robbed of their essence and life. Its an act of supremacy, of complete and utter dominance, a grotesque and public demonstration of humiliation. You have conquered their heart, and now hold it aloft as though it were a mere sports trophy. 

Some people hold another person's love, in a similar way, as though it were a prize trophy. A self possessed man with oodles of charm feels they can woo anyone. To them taking someone's love, is a means to manipulate, to conform another person to their will. Using love to hold them prisoner. A heart can be stolen, no longer owned by you, but by another who misuses it. Unwillingly surrendering your individual agency up to a lower, treacherous person.

In such times of trial and torment, of course ones heart aches. We are being hurt emotionally, in our mind, and are spiritually bruised. Any situation or relationship can go wrong and we will feel stabbed in the heart by it. In our imaginations we form this metaphorical knife, that cuts all the deeper into the core of our being, because we created it. We make it bore into our heart to gouge it out like a melon.

In Christian imagery, such as that of St Theresa of Avila, God's love is portrayed as a knife in the heart. Producing an uplifting transcendent form of religious ecstasy. In the case of St Sebastian, his form of extreme martyrdom; being pieced like a pin cushion by numerous arrows, takes on an ecstatic transformative gloss. A line exists between the suffering and the sublime, crossed by an imperative to surrender, willingly offering up your essence to a higher power.

We imagine our heart is this vital cog in the functioning of our body. That our body and the heart it contains, are similar to a well oiled machine, such as a car. One that can be repaired should it fail to function properly. The heart is, after all, just a pumping muscle, a few coordinated valves that enable us to stay alive. But we know that our body is not a machine. We are precarious beings made of flesh and bone, entirely dependent upon a body and a heart. Precisely because they are not machines, they are breakable. And so we search for a salve, for whatever will restore our heart's ease.

Of course our heart can be attacked, externally or internally. Hearts are forever being stabbed or stabbing. But in both cases it can feel we are being subjected to an unwarranted assault. Even if our genetics, our own behaviour, what we ate, and how fit we are was the real instigator of that attack. Our consciousness feels it is merely inhabiting this body of ours, and now this body is bloody malfunctioning. We are so used to our heart being instrumental in keeping us alive, that it comes as a huge shock to our whole existential sense of well being, to find that the heart will also be the administrator of our death.

At the heart of any human matter is an idea we hold onto for dear life. At the core of us, is something that will pass on, to survive our death. To take the essence of our existence, beyond the vulnerability of bodily decay. Like a tree we have an impermeable heartwood, it is central to us, older, darker, harder, persistent. It can provide strength and support, whilst all that surrounds it ages and declines. There is the heart's liberator, the heart's release, the heart unbound from the chafing ropes of bodily existence which imprison it. A sacred heart born upward on angelic wings. It's crucial we take care what we place our heart upon. For any heart, like our life, can also be lost.