The White Heart
The Ancient Alchemy of Self-Love
The Ancient Egyptians believed that when we die, before we can pass through to the blessed lands, our heart must be weighed on a great scale. Our heart must be as light as a feather in order to be liberated.
This points the way to the deepest of alchemies, thought to be complex and highly secretive they are only translations of one, essential secret. This one secret has many facets however, which are explored with these beautifully sculpted alchemies. They are only signs to direct us more and more deeply inward.
The great Heart of all of these mysteries is the one at the center of your being. And when we lay to rest what we collect in this world, it is a White Heart. We do not need to die to lay these things to rest, we can relieve our hearts of these burdens while still living. Just as the White Heart is not the color white, but truly an attempt at describing translucence. A translucence in which all the contents, and the true nature, are visible.
This heart knows all the answers we could ever find questions for. It speaks to us in the darkest of moments and the lightest of laughters. It is always with us, we simply long to be able to hear and feel it clearly again.
We fragment, and rather than illusory, we decide that it is real. Almost every day something harsh comes our way, and we crack right through the center. If we are lucky we fall apart and redesign ourselves according to our innate plan. If we are confused by the impact, as it is so easy to be, we hold tight to the widening fissures and when pieces fly we run to grab them and keep them safe. We build an altar and we place these pieces in boxes so that we will have them when we know what to do with them. We are afraid of death.
The heart becomes clouded, gray. The mind weeps as its instrument. There is only one way out of the woods, though there are many paths to get there: let the heart express itself. The heart becomes light by unloading the burdens it carries. Let the weeping and its accompanying words be loosed. The next time you feel something, say it. Laugh, moan, sing.
To be translucent is a courageous act. To let your mechanisms and processes be visible, rather than tucked under tight clothing or compressed into small spaces and looked at only when the seams are ripping. To stop “seeming” and just be…the freedom is incomparable and terrifying. Would all the sets on the stage of your life fall, leaving you no context to find sanctuary within…or to hide beneath?
Would you be left any place in the social patchwork…or would yours be given to the next in line? Would you lose your friends, your work? Would you starve?
What about the starving heart? What is the full belly while the heart starves in silence? After I spent time in India everyone asked me if witnessing the poverty was challenging. Of course it was, but no harder than witnessing the poverty I see in my own country…the poverty of the soul.
We concentrate so much on filling in the right lines, choreographing the life out of our daily dance…forgetting the dance altogether. Filling our hours, our grocery carts, our houses, our conversations, and forgetting to fill our souls with the deepest nourishments. Even as we seek our “spiritual path” we fill our hearts like storage units with all the shame, the self-blame, even the global suffering far beyond our human reach. We take on responsibility for everything from a missed appointment to someone else’s feelings. A misplaced word. A dropped moment. A self-doubting thought. They are all tossed onto the pile in the heart as its ancient floorboards creak under the weight.
But we are blessed. Blessed beyond all of this. The heart is the most skilled and experienced transmuter in the universe. Like the Earth, whenever she is ready she will simply find a way to lighten the load. Sometimes it will be a threat to our very life that takes us to the point where we can finally see what matters in our lives, and what doesn’t. We then begin to unload by the barrel-full, easing every weight we possibly can.
We have other choices, however. We can learn in other ways. The sacred truth, the not-so-secret truth, is that our hearts are not just weighed when we have left the earthly plane…they are weighed in each moment, and the lighter we can keep our hearts, the more often we will find ourselves in the blessed lands. By definition, the lands that are free of suffering, but contain all the beauty and the bliss possible in our human life.
It is radical to forgive oneself repeatedly and unconditionally. As you read this, take a moment to close your eyes and imagine that you have never, ever committed an unpure or careless act. Imagine you have never done wrong and are entirely clean in your soul.
What emotions do you feel when you try that? What if you lead your life feeling that way…imagining that every morning you begin absolutely anew? No debts or losses, no bonus points or extra credits to yearn for to make up for them. Just a perfect, untouched land of beauty and nothing of yourself that is separate from it. The negative thoughts may persist, but they are not as powerful as your Heart, for your Heart is the Great Heart of the Universe. They are one and the same, and this is what is truly seen in the translucence of the White Heart.
Read about “The White Heart Workshop” this Month
© 2006 Jennifer Posada. All rights reserved.
You may make copies of this article and distribute in any media so long as you credit the author, include the copyright notice and her website address. www.jenniferposada.com
