“Only from the heart can you touch the sky.”
– Rumi

Throughout time, the heart has been seen as much more than a physical organ.

In Christianity and Judaism, the heart is regarded as the seat of the soul. For Aristotle – who did not view the brain as central – reason resided in the heart. In Buddhism and Hinduism, the heart holds deep emotional and spiritual significance. The Aztecs believed it carried a fragment of the sun’s life-giving warmth. For the ancient Egyptians, the heart was the key to life after death. The god Anubis weighed the heart of the deceased to determine the quality of their life. As one inscription reads: “The heart of man is its own God.”

In the modern world, we primarily know the heart as the mechanical pump in our chest. Children are taught early to read the clock, master arithmetic, understand traffic rules, and to read and write. But rarely are they taught the skills of the heart – the very skills that spiritual traditions across time and place have regarded as essential.

“A more peaceful world can become reality only if we educate not just the brain, but also the heart,” writes His Holiness the Dalai Lama in his article Education of the Heart.

In this meditation, Hanneli gently guides us towards the heart – starting with the concrete felt sense of the body and the breath.

The practice explores how breath and awareness can help connect our heart feelings with something greater: a sense of openness, a connection to inner resources – perhaps even what we might call a spiritual dimension. By linking the heart with the so-called essence point approximately 30 centimeters above the head, we are invited to lean into a subtle circulation of energy that is already present.

And should this seem too abstract, we can, quite simply and without mysticism, approach the exercise as a form of creative imagination grounded in lived emotion – the experience of meaning, joined with care, compassion, and love for ourselves, for others, and for the world.

Heart practices like this one are practical and existential.
They help us cultivate the capacity to care, and to meet one another with tolerance and compassion.