Your extraordinary heart
“Heart” is a mysterious and unfathomable word with its many definitions and interpretations. There’s a heart that doctors medicate and treat, a heart that surgeons operate on or transplant; there’s a heart that can be deeply hurt following loss or tragedy; there’s a heart that can be filled with joy, a heart brimming over with love; and then there’s a heart wherein resides the centrality of the entire universe.
The human heart is deeply complex and truly extraordinary — far more than a “blood pump” for the body. Modern medicine will have you believe it’s simply a four-chambered muscular organ that beats at around 100,000 times a day, 24 hours a day, delivering oxygenated blood to your 75 trillion-plus cells. Did you know it contains its own neurons and intelligence? Your heart, in fact, has its own nervous system composed of around 40,000 neurons.
Another perplexing question has been posed and extensively debated for thousands of years: where does the mind reside? Many believe it resides within the heart. Aristotle argued that the heart is, in fact, the organ of intelligence; the Egyptians believed the heart, rather than the brain, was the source of human wisdom as well as emotions, memory, the soul and the personality. The wisdom and intuition of the heart is a central theme in several religious belief systems.
