You are Wonderfully Made: Your Heart

Tender hearts. Brave hearts. Hearts on fire. Broken hearts. Contrite hearts. Grateful hearts. Heartstrings. Heartthrobs. Sweethearts. Bless your heart.
The most beautiful words I’ve found to describe the heart are those of Michael A. Singer in his book “The Untethered Soul.”
“Your heart is one of the masterpieces of creation,” he wrote. “It is a phenomenal instrument. It has the potential to create vibrations and harmonies that are far beyond the beauty of pianos, strings, or flutes. You can hear an instrument, but you feel your heart. And if you think that you feel an instrument, it’s only because it touched your heart. Your heart is an instrument made of extremely subtle energy that few people come to appreciate.”
When we feel strong emotion – surprise, fear, love, joy - we instinctively place our hand over our heart. Our heart is the feeling center of our being. Poets and song writers know this, as the heart is written about in almost every poem and love song through the ages.
The heart is the symbol of love. As we experience different types of love – divine, parent, child, sibling, romantic, friendship, compassion for humanity – our sensitive heart sees beauty, feels goodness, hears the songs of nature.
The heart is the first organ to develop. At four weeks, groups of embryonic cells fuse together into a hollow tube. Some cells of this heart tube begin to spontaneously contract, an electrically induced flickering, the first “heartbeat.” Your heart has its own electrical system of pacemaker cells that create and sustain electrical impulses, causing the heart muscles to rhythmically contract to pump your blood.
Your blood delivers oxygen from the lungs, nutrients from the digestive system and hormones from your glands into your trillions of cells. Circulating blood transports carbon dioxide and the other waste products of cell metabolism to the lungs, kidneys and other organs for removal. Certain blood cells fight invading organisms, clot during injury to control bleeding, balance fluid levels and control temperature.
Your heart beats approximately 86,400 times and pumps about 1,800 gallons of blood, every day, year after year, throughout your wonderful life. It’s a finely engineered pump, with amazing muscle endurance.
Your heart is an energy center, receiving energy like a constant river flowing through to your inner self, your soul. This connection between physical life and spiritual life is the greatest mystery and also the greatest joy of being alive.
What the world needs now, and always, is love. Keep your heart always open to receiving love, constantly filling and overflowing onto others, a positive exchange of comfort and compassion in the circle of life. Love your creator, yourself and all of creation with all of your heart.
Now ponder this: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
“There is an ocean of infinite wisdom in you. Put your hand on your heart and feel it beating.” – Jennifer Williamson