Heart and Consciousness: Happy Valentine's Day!

http://c2.api.ning.com/files/euULXEQgkJUGj1mAEzxJvFNLBjVEllILVGKtFKYHLMwbAtayRWlrIfNQpBtcLNH-D4aSS5qfcj-s-jNiaaK3NVc6GMSnitGu/AlexGrey_HeartConsciousness.jpg

In her book, Patriotic Sketches of Ireland, Sydney Owenson observes:

 Political philosophy is an extension of the mind’s eye to the whole great scale of civil society, and demonstrating the close-linked dependencies of its remotest parts, affords to the benevolence of the human heart, and the comprehension of the human understanding, a social system, gratifying to the feelings of the one, and ennobling to the faculties of the other. (33)

The human heart and 'comprehension of understanding,' which I will identify as consciousness, are two distinct entities, for the heart, aside from its organic characteristics, contains the essence of human emotions. On the other hand, comprehension of understanding involves the assimilation of intelligence and critical analysis as they interact with the psycho-physiological structure in a wondrous flow of human experience. I reflect on this concept in the following poem:

Flow I

Passion creates verve

whose song desires voice;

now boldly sing

radiate stillness

encircle fear: enflame!

This fervor flows

with molten resonance

angled benevolence

evolution through revolution,

illumined by the intricacy

of simplicity adorned

transformed

with interlacing

flow.

Jeanne I. Lakatos