Heartsong Studio

What is heart ?

Everybody knows what “heart” means, right ? You hear it all the time. You probably use it too. But what the heck does it mean - a vague, sugary generality, or what ?

There’s - take heart / have a heart / with all my heart / you’ve gotta have heart / hard-hearted / the heart of the matter, and countless other expressions used in daily conversation, song lyrics, films, and letters. I’ll bet that I’ve included the word “heart” in 99 percent of every Fresh Horses article I’ve ever written.

A local artist wrote in his newsletter the other day about “one type of artist who believe all you have to do is “wing it,” “anything goes,” “anybody can do it,”and “I can do what I want as long as it has ‘heart’.” Is this what I mean by heart ?

A friend with a scientific frame of mind asked, when I use the word “heart”, do I mean the organ in your chest which pumps blood around your body until the moment you die, or do I mean the metaphorical use of heart ? He was looking for some more precise definition, and feeling a bit “over- sugared” by what seemed to him like cloying descriptions.

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Good question ! Do I mean the lub-dub heart, or the sweet-anything-goes heart ?

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My answer is - neither. From the bottom of my heart, I don’t mean the blood-pumping organ in your chest, nor do I mean the metaphorical heart.

Popular language throughout the world has adopted the heart as the centre of loving feelings. Some scientists say it should actually be the liver, spleen, or thymus gland. Others claim the mind as the centre of love. But logic and scientific evidence aside, the heart has it, hands-down, for popular acceptance throughout centuries of time and all cultures.

Even physicists say that everything is made of Essence. To Sufis, the heart is an actual organ of access to the Source. High up on your chest, where your collar bones meet is a notch. That is the physical doorway to access the Essence, Spirit, One, or the Source.

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So how do you find access to your Source ?

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In every great spiritual tradition there is an emphasis on remembering. Christians speak of the recollected heart, and of being in a state of recollection. In Sanskrit, it is Smirti. In Pali it’s Sati. In Tibetan it is drenpa. In Sufism it’s the Remembrance. All of these mean to remember, or to re-member, or re-collect ourselves; to stop all our outward striving, to pull ourselves together, to be connected inside - body, heart, and mind.

Qalb is Arabic for heart. But Qalb means much more than just heart. It also means turning, turning away from the world, turning inwards.

Until very recently, I had used Zen meditation or Quaker silent sitting as a way to get past my controlling mind whenever I made art. It didn’t work reliably, and depended on my changing mood. At the tender age of 66, I finally ran into the simple, ancient spiritual practice of the Sufis, the Remembrance. And this has changed my whole life, my art, and my teaching.

It doesn’t require any particular spiritual or religious background, which was good because I had none. Unlike many methods of meditation, the Remembrance doesn’t try to quiet your mind, but to nourish your neediness. It doesn’t require you to do any strange, woo-woo rituals, only to be open to the possibility of there being a spiritual being.

Practicing the Remembrance is simply taking time to remember, repeating the name you’re comfortable using for the Essence into your heart. You do not need to change a single thing. Whatever your physical or emotional state is, is perfectly okay as is.

The Remembrance is an invocation, not invoking the Source into this space, but invoking yourself into the Source. You are remembering that the One is present in everything. As you call the Name into your heart, your heart starts to witness that Reality.

It’s not about having a wonderful experience. It’s sometimes really uncomfortable because it brings up emotions that can be hard to access. But these difficult feelings don’t appear out of nowhere - you were carrying them all along. The aim isn’t to get past them or change them. When we stop trying to fix things, then we can feel the support that’s right there underneath all the time.

Remembering is calling in the unknown, making space for how you are right now, and having your neediness filled. Anything you do “from your heart” is bound to be fully authentic. When faced with a challenge you don’t have answers to, you are shown the way.

As one client said: “It’s much easier to work from my heart - both in expressing and interpreting. So, I’m going to find it exciting to look at artwork with my heart rather than my head…” May Johnstone, Scotland, www.delicioushealing.com

Remembrance allows you to stand where your Reality is right now, so you can feel the strength of the ground under you, supporting you. It is like coming home to your deepest knowing. It’s simple; it’s universal; and it works !

What leads you, expectation or inspiration ?

“Can you tell me the way to India ?” asked a man in an open rowboat, coming alongside, as we sailed off Portsmouth. Our master instructor prepared to give him an exact compass reading, but the man said: “Just point the way.”

Without a wrinkle in his British reserve, our captain pointed west. “Go that way to the Isle of Wight, and turn left.” Thanking us, he rowed off, his little boat gradually becoming a speck in a very large sea, as we watched in stunned disbelief !

My fiance and I were learning the technicalities of navigation at sea with expert sailors. I had no particular goal, and now, more than thirty years later, I‘ve forgotten most of what I learned. . . except for this incident that struck me to the core with deep awe.

I didn‘t know the difference between inspiration and perspiration, and often expected novelty to supply fresh motivation. And it often did, for a moment. You probably travel through much the same territory each day too, whatever your daily activities. Mostly that’s all to the good. It’s also comforting and efficient.

Maybe you’re so used to the same old routine that you don’t even realise you’ve run out of inspiration for life, trying to fill expectations and obligations. When familiar ways of working no longer hold any love, how can you explore new territory without a reliable source of inspiration ?

There was such an inspired glow about the man in the rowboat that I felt sure he’d reach somewhere exciting, even if he didn‘t make it to India. He had something we didn’t - a destination worth the risk. All he needed was the way pointed out.

The only directions he needed were really quite simple. His deep inspiration would supply the rest. Why bother with something technically complicated when you’re being led by an inspiration from deep within your heart ? Who knew there’s an infinite source of creative inspiration close inside, anall you need is to have the way pointed out ?

Like me, you may have tried using your mind to learn a new technique for your work. My mind tends to run a tight ship, and I can take someone else’s map and try to do what’s expected of me. When you try to follow someone else’s map in creative work, your fear of wandering into the unknown and getting lost keeps you within the boundaries of the usual. Stay within the usual territory and you run out of imagination, patience and courage, and you never find what you seek.

It was many years and experiences later before I learned that the way to discovering the creative potential within was open to anyone. Once you can gain a sense of personal orientation, a self that knows its own centre, unafraid of being who you are, then you are never quite lost.

Drawing from within on your spiritual source is not technical like taking a sextant reading. It’s about drawing from your deepest wellsprings and using this infinite source to point the way to heal and enrich your whole life. With access to your heart, and trust in that compass, an infinite number of possibilities for finding new and original territory is yours.

Guided by your infinitely stronger inner compass, all the techniques you already know or might learn can be put to better use. Then you won’t be led by outer requirements, but by inner inspiration. You might not set off to row to India, but you’ll be free to set your sights on the bliss of your choosing.

Have you ever secretly longed to break free of the limits of principles and techniques and just throw paint at a canvas in wild abandon ? If it seems too childish a notion, this article may point out an adult way:

Too grown up to recover the magic inside ?

To an innocent child, doing whatever you feel like needs no rational reason, you just do it because you believe in magic. An adult might have a healthy scepticism about this child’s innocent view, but have you ever heard of a healthy cynicism ?

If you, as a responsible adult created whatever you felt like regardless of any rational reason, it would likely lead to chaos, right ?

P.T.Barnum once said: “More people are humbugged by believing in nothing than by believing in too much.”

If you’ve lost sight of your playful child’s way of exploring, it may be necessary to risk a little chaos first in order to recover your lost lust for the magic of the unknown world. It’s still waiting there inside you. Once you’ve opened the door to participate with the spirit inside, you’ll see how much more there is beyond exterior objectivity.

Draw, cook, create anything from the outside alone, with only outside formulas, and you’ll compromise who you are. Creating with your mind needs certain principles and techniques. But, that’s where the problems start. If your mind starts out in the driver’s seat, its all over, because your mind can only use what it already knows - it doesn’t do well with the unknown.

Though you’ve learned good principles and techniques that actually work, they can act like a strait-jacket, with no allowance for the unique feelings that are in your heart. That’s when you can feel a little bit of your heart die as you start to do “what you’re supposed to do” instead of what you’re inspired to do.

We all work from both the outside and the inside all the time. It might seem like an either-or choice only if your rational mind far out-balances your intuitive heart. Trying something new seems awkward and risky. You’ve got your way of doing whatever you do, creating, singing, drawing . . . or avoiding it. There seems to be no problem because it’s covered by habit.

Faith is not blind, but we often begin looking in the dark. How can you find inspiration inside ? First, go inside and ask to be shown. Your heart is what allows in the unknown. Surrender what you think you know and be willing to be surprised.

Once you find inspired magic of your own, and then support it with what you’ve been taught to do, then your adult world becomes more complete. Your familiar principles and techniques will have your
heart’s intuition to build upon. Then instead of being blocked by outside requirements for rational, predictable results, you’ll have
a dynamic way of using old stand-bys to enhance your new intuitive solutions.

The 12th Century Sufi poet Rumi wrote:
“You continue to knock on the door, until you experience that
you’ve been knocking from the inside.”