Gnosis Cardiaca + Ecologies of Care

Part I

Excerpt from a work-in-progress showing coming up this Sunday, September 10 in NYC. Ticket information at the bottom of this essay

We are all being danced by an invisible logic, one whose rhythms and patterns we cannot truly understand until the veil is pulled back to reveal the equation to us. We have little power in determining when that clarity arrives, though it is a basic human need to make meaning of the clues that we detect along the way. Meaning-making is clinically defined in psychological practice as “the process of how people construe, understand, or make sense of life events, relationships and the self.” As clinical approaches tactfully do, this definition places the work of meaning in the intellect, prioritizing the organizational skills of the brain to help define what our life means to us. What if we imagined, for a moment, that the organ we can most rely on for shaping our perception of what the world means to us is the beating smooth tissue located just left to the center of our chest? 

Cardiognosis, loosely translated as “knowledge of the heart” is a term popularized by theologians of mystic Christianity. This concept wagers that there is a tool with which one could directly perceive God, a pseudo telephone hotline, a deeper knowing unfettered by language, text, or tradition – this tool is the human heart. Our education of this critical instrument as a necessary conductor orchestrating the rhythm of our heartbeat, the circulation of blood, and the oxygenation of the body (to name but a few), often misses one of its most exciting functions: that it is an organ of perception, a way of  crafting  story of the experiences that we have, a way to know what things are from the very place that they come from: unclouded by our perceptions, traumas, hang-ups, judgements, untoward experiences, or even preferences and joys. What would it mean to be able to “see” with the eye of the heart? To perceive events, relationships, and the self with clarity and to be able to extend that clarity of thought to all other beings? This is the unique offering of the heart – its ability to take into account that which is within us, but also that which is without us; that we are shaped by meaningful interactions where we are not the center, but instead behave as a roving satellite pinging relationships with all manner of visible and invisible beings. We are but one contribution to the meaning-making of the larger whole: our ecosystems and the foreign ecosystems that we encounter through moving through space and time in our lives here on Earth. 

The heart, always established in its own rhythmic dance, is particularly susceptible to the oscillatory patterns of other objects around it. That is: When we encounter other beings with strong electromagnetic fields, our heart automatically entrains itself to pulse in concert with that external presence. If these electromagnetic fields had a sound (which they do, outside of the scope of human hearing), one could imagine that there is a symphony in every place where more than one being meets - rhythmic equations stretching and bending themselves in time to each other’s presence. I wonder, if we take the time to tune ourselves, if we might be able to hear the songs that are created by the invisible interactions that occur between our bodies? Theoretically, there is not a moment in our lives where we are living without music. Even if we cannot hear it, this music is constantly dancing us. It is the logic that pins us all to this Earth, whose harmonious movements we can only hear if we tune our bodies to the key of the heart.

The electromagnetic field of the heart, courtesy of the HeartMath Institute

At the physiological level, when the heart’s electromagnetic field comes into contact with an electromagnetic field from another being it reads the information encoded in this field and mails it up to the brain for analysis. Once this process is complete, the meaning-making of category + intellect is redirected back to the heart in order to find the best rhythmic response to maintain balance. This response is the seed of what we call “feeling”, and it is how we are automatically tethered to the world around us: we are constantly shifting the rhythmic pulse that is our aliveness through entraining with the pulse of others. At best we are also responding through the syncing of brain and heart, the 

categorization of intellectual storytelling softening to make way for a felt sense of what is true. Whether we make the choice or not, we are reliant on each other for so many of our processes of being human. As such, it is deep medicine to call our attention to these webs of reliance - to use them as a container that we fill with our perception and awareness. Once we acknowledge our interconnection we are met with a very basic truth at the center of our existence: Life is a dance of care.

Part 2 coming for you next week…

I am exploring all of these ideas with a fantastic group of performers this Sunday, September 10 at Arts On Site, in the East Village in NYC, shows at 6.30pm and 8.30pm. This is an informal work-in-progress showing, sharing some ideas of new movement, herbal + ritual practices of care in the performance setting. I cannot wait to share it with you, and hope that you will be there!

Tickets for the 6:30 show: https://www.artsonsite.org/events-1/amanda-krische

Tickets for the 8:30 show: https://www.artsonsite.org/events-1/amanda-krische-2

Discount for $20 tickets: Studio3Rdiscount

With care + gratitude,

Amanda