The Heart(h) of Community

The sacred chamber of the heart — the fourth chakra — is the inner hearth of community. As the center point between the upper three and lower three chakras — and the Heaven and Earth to which they respectively extend — the heart center welcomes the interior community of one’s own mind, body and spirit (and the cast of characters that comprise personal identity) and the wider community of beings that comprise nature and the cosmos. It is the gathering place where all the aspects of the self (the intellectual self, the emotional self, the embodied self, the self-who-is-partner/daughter/friend, etc.) can unite as an integrated Self.

The Self, united within the heart, can invite to its hearth and commune with other Selves — be they other humans, other animals, plants, planets or stars. These “others” are in fact aspects of One Self, one body of the cosmos, birthed 13.7 billion years ago in the great moment of primordial Creation.

An open heart chakra can breathe into itself the love of the Universe, given by the life force power of Light, which is the fuel and food of the created world. This Light feeds a spiritual fire in the hearth; it is the fire of awareness of our collective cosmic kinship. I envision an archetypal Self, warming its hands against these flames. These hands are the very same channels of reciprocating cosmic love. An open heart chakra naturally extends life force energy down the arms and out the energy centers that spiral in each palm. (Beyond the seven primary energy centers that map to the endocrine system, there are minor chakras that map to the hands and feet. The hand chakras are considered extensions of the heart.) In an energetically balanced individual, the hands do the heart’s work. In other terms, God relies on us to do compassion’s work.

This work naturally takes place within the context of community. Even a monk sequestered on the highest mountain peak is embedded in what theologian Thomas Berry often refers to as the “Earth community”. It is inescapable. And for the post-modern mystic, community is also woven through the fine fibers of etheric communication across the Internet!

An open heart chakra constantly takes in and puts out life force energy. Our hearts flex and then our hands tingle with anticipation to create in community. In this Light, I see that fingers flying across computer keyboards for dutiful email exchanges are actually coding love with every keystroke. Every bit of work we do can be an expression of interconnection.