 Wisdom teaching associates the heart with the sun, for the heart is indeed the sun, the centre of the cosmos of our being, around which our physical life and, in truth, our spiritual consciousness, revolves or circulates. Francis Thompson, an English poet writing in the early years of the 20th century, gives a teaching on the consciousness of the heart in one of his most famous poems:
Where is the land of Luthany,
Where is the tract of Elenore?
I am bound therefor.
‘Pierce thy heart to find the key;
With thee take
Only what none else would keep:
Learn to dream when thou dost wake,
Learn to wake when thou dost sleep...
When thy seeing blindeth thee
When their sight to thee is sightless;
Their living, death; their light, most lightless!
Search no more –
Pass the gates of Luthany, tread the region of Elenore.’
Where is the land of Luthany,
And where the region Elenore?
I do faint therefor.
‘When to the new eyes of thee
All things by immortal power
Near or far,
Hiddenly
To each other link-ed are,
That thou canst not stir a flower
Without troubling of a star;
Seek no more,
O seek no more!
Pass the gates of Luthany, tread the region Elenore.’
From ‘The Mistress of Vision’
These are the words of an angel speaking to a pilgrim, a seeker on the path. The land of Luthany is that higher vision, that awakened state, which the pilgrim or the seeker (the striving soul) longs to attain, so that the gates might open into the spiritual worlds. The enlightenment the soul seeks is ‘the land of Luthany’, the world of the spirit ‘the region of Elenore’. The angel gives to the pilgrim a beautiful mystery teaching so that s/he may at last ‘pass the gates of Luthany, tread the region Elenore’.
The power of love
We see that the angel bids the pilgrim ‘pierce thy heart to find the key’. In the ancient mystery schools, the neophyte was taught that heart-consciousness, the mind in the heart, was the great key to the mystery of all creation and of approach to the Godhead itself. This heart-consciousness is not the seat of the emotions and of nervous or instinctual energy (which actually lies in the solar plexus) but is the source of the power of love, which is divine. It may be difficult to think of love as a power, rather than an emotion, in essence, because we experience love through our emotions. Nevertheless, experiencing love through the medium of our emotions does not mean that love itself is an emotion. Love is the sacred flame arising from the Source of All.
It may help to think of the power of a storm in its crescendo – terrible, ineluctable – and yet at the heart of this mighty play of forces there is a profound and perfect stillness. Manifest creation and the moods and passions which inform it are the storm, love is the mystical peace at its heart.
The mystery schools taught that at the heart of all created things, all created beings, there is a spark of the holy light of the Godhead. In human beings, that spark is bestowed in a special way, bearing with it a stupendous gift; for through it, we as individuals are given the opportunity to grow into God-Goddess-consciousness.
The heart as the sun of the human body
The great symbol and sign of the Divine Being for humankind has always been the sun. We are told that there is a huge central sun, the heart of the cosmos, around which all the lesser suns in the universe move, and that every sun or star bears within its physical form the perfect shape of a six-pointed star which emanates the white and golden spiritual light shining behind the atoms of material sunlight. The golden-white light of the star is love-in-action and pours forth from the Godhead which is its ineffable origin. It is a spark of this sacred light which quickens every being, and which links the human heart directly to the sun and the Divine Being, of which our sun is but a flicker of manifestation. The sun of the human body is the heart, and the heart it is which enshrines that mysterious spark of Godhead which when nurtured by our own striving rises as a column of flame so that the head-centre gives off a halo of light like the physical sun. Nevertheless, the root and the source of this flame is in the heart, not the head or the mind.
The flame or spark in the heart is also a star, a tiny microcosm of the macrocosmic six-pointed star which exists at the centre of every heavenly body in the cosmos. This golden-white star exists within our own heart, in actuality, in reality. It is the source of all our power, all our creativity. By its grace, we give and receive healing and spiritual illumination. To this great in-breath and out-breath of spiritual life the angels tend and minister.
Rise into the reality of the spirit
This profound teaching is given by the angel to the pilgrim in Francis Thompson’s poem. The angels of the sun, of love, says the angel, will come to us to ‘pierce our hearts’ when we aspire to rise into the reality of the spirit. When we can renounce earthly values and illusions (‘With thee take only what none else would keep’), when we can stimulate our inner vision (‘Learn to dream when thou dost wake, Learn to wake when thou dost sleep...’) and realize our unity with all creation, our brotherhood with all beings (‘That thou canst not stir a flower without troubling of a star’), the key will turn in the sacred lock, and the door will open onto the region of Elenore – the worlds within: the realm of the heart, the innermost chamber of the spiritual sun, which is where the angels dwell.
Michael and Shekinah are the two great Shining Ones who rule the sun. Servants of these mighty angels who are also connected with the sun (amongst countless others) are Anael, the Angel of the Star of Love, Jophiel (‘Beauty of God’) and Raziel, Lord of the Supreme Mysteries. They will bless all our healing endeavours when we work from heart-centred awareness.
From Angel Healing, © 2008 by Claire Nahmad, published by Watkins.
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