{"id":74668,"date":"2026-10-08T08:52:04","date_gmt":"2026-10-08T06:52:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/?p=74668"},"modified":"2026-10-08T08:52:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-08T06:52:09","slug":"move-in-this-direction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/move-in-this-direction\/","title":{"rendered":"Move in This Direction"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The heart doesn\u2019t just pump\u2014it also listens to the flow of blood. Between stillness, expansiveness, and warmth, a living cycle reveals itself. To turn toward the heart is to turn toward the place where love becomes the impulse of life.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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What does it mean to listen to one\u2019s heart? To act from the heart? To rest in the heart? How can we move toward this place that knows our very individual path? How do we find a connection to the living continuity of our being through the jungle of everyday life, the emotional roller coasters, and the multitude of possibilities?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A first step is to understand the heart through the lens of the story we\u2019ve been telling about it since the 17th century. Our thoughts shape reality. If we imagine that the heart is a pump and that it pumps blood through the body with all its strength, then it\u2019s not far-fetched to feel that we must pump our heart\u2019s desire into the world with all our might\u2014to build pressure so that something becomes possible. But when we perceive our heart as embedded in the continuous circulation of blood in which the relationship between source and destination, center and periphery, is woven into a rhythmically moving flow\u2014our perspective changes. Then the blood possesses a living force that moves the heart\u2014just as there are forces that cause seas to surge, springs to gush from the earth, and rivers to flow. So could it also be that there is an invisible force\u2014one that is not mechanical in and of itself\u2014that causes our blood to flow?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How is it that even today the heart is still described in textbooks as a suction-pressure pump? In the 17th century, William Harvey discovered the closed circulatory system in which the heart functions as the central organ. He assumed that the contraction of the heart propels the blood. Since then, the heart has been studied as a pump. Today\u2019s physiology textbooks still teach the Frank-Starling mechanism. Mr. Frank removed a frog\u2019s heart and perfused it with bovine blood. He observed that the more the heart muscle was stretched by the blood, the more blood was ejected. Two decades later, Mr. Starling observed the same phenomenon in an isolated heart-lung specimen from a dog. The mechanism describes the heart muscle\u2019s ability to generate force\u2014that is, to contract\u2014in response to stretching (i.e., from the volume of blood), thereby propelling the blood forward. This occurs even without nervous innervation, simply through the relationship between blood and the heart. This contraction also generates pressure within the heart. From this, a model was developed in which the heart was described as a unified, pumping mechanism for blood. All these models, however, consider the heart in isolation and disregard physiological conditions. And there are some inconsistencies. For example, the heart muscle can generate only a fraction of the force of a skeletal muscle (200 g\/cm\u00b2 versus 2\u20135 kg\/cm\u00b2) and would therefore be unable to generate the cardiac output\u2014that is, the volume of blood flowing through the circulatory system in one minute\u2014through muscular contraction alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If we consider the anatomy of the heart, we notice that the inflow and outflow angles are very steep. Such a steep structure is very inefficient for a pump: the steep inflow angle causes the blood to slow down significantly at first. Inside the ventricle, the blood then makes a 180-degree turn before flowing out again. In effect, this slows the blood down and briefly halts it before it flows in the opposite direction with renewed momentum. If we visualize this with our senses, we can experience the vibrant momentum and pulse inherent in the blood. If we do not consider our heart in isolation from the circulatory system but instead take into account the dynamics of movement in the blood capillaries, we find that there, too, a very active exchange takes place between cells and capillaries along a concentration gradient. Pressures are at work there as well: on the one hand, colloid-osmotic pressure draws fluid into the capillaries, and on the other, hydrostatic pressure forces fluid from the capillaries into the interstitial space\u2014the microscopic gap between cells. In the arterioles\u2014the small arteries that connect larger arteries to capillaries\u2014the hydrostatic pressure is greater. In the capillaries, the pressures balance each other out. Therefore, there is a kind of zero point before the colloid-osmotic pressure exceeds the hydrostatic pressure and fluid flows back into the capillaries. Just as there are turning points\u2014moments of stillness\u2014in the heart, there are also threshold reversal points at the periphery. It is as if, in this stillness, the blood is reinvigorated, finding its way back to the center with all the substances and information it has absorbed from the body\u2019s cells.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All these movements occur simultaneously. Where does this continuous cycle begin? How does this movement of blood arise? Can you imagine how it might arise from the blood itself? From the relationship between vessel and flow? Of its own accord, perhaps even out of love, out of joy, out of longing? What is the true source of this movement? Can you open yourself to this force that is simply there? That sets us in motion? And what, then, is the heart\u2019s purpose if its power no longer lies in its pumping function? We must free the heart internally from this pumping function in order to sense what it is truly meant for. What is the heart\u2019s true power? And what do we need to live from the heart or to follow our heart?<\/p>\n\n\n

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Silence, Expansiveness, Warmth<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The heart\u2019s function is not to pump, but to hold the blood for a moment\u2014to pause\u2014before it flows on again. This moment of stillness serves to absorb information from the blood and gain an impression of how the body is doing. This is important for its ability to regulate the pulse, blood pressure, and fluid balance according to the body\u2019s needs. The heart is entirely at the service of the entire organism. The heart can rest when the blood is flowing. However, when we lose our openness to the invisible force that sets our blood in motion\u2014for example, due to stiffness, stress, or deposits caused by metabolic disorders\u2014we often live with the feeling that we ourselves are the driving force and exert pressure to create movement. This places a strain on our heart. The heart gets no breaks or recovery periods, unlike, for example, the brain during sleep or the gastrointestinal tract between meals. It beats as long as we live. How can we support it in this honorable task? Between the heart muscle cells is the protein titin, which ensures that the heart muscles can withstand significant stretching. At the same time, the pericardium protects the heart from excessive stretching. The heart\u2019s true strength, then, lies in its ability to expand to receive blood without losing its integrity. It holds the blood for a moment, which automatically creates pressure. We don\u2019t need to generate this pressure ourselves; it simply arises from the volume of blood held in the heart for a moment. When the pressure\u2014or force\u2014is great enough, the valves open and the blood flows onward. When we are filled from within, enough force is automatically generated for love to overflow into the world. We also find the warmth of the heart physiologically within the heart itself. The generation of heat remains a great miracle in and of itself. Nevertheless, there is one type of heat generation that has been studied physiologically: in the heart, turbulence in the blood can be observed. This creates counter-flow vortices. As a result, part of the blood\u2019s kinetic energy is retained and released in the form of heat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Making Room for Individual Expression<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In medical school, we learn that when we listen to heart sounds, our primary goal is to distinguish between healthy and diseased conditions. But if we listen closely, we hear that every person has a completely unique sound emanating from the heart. In biometric research, there is even discussion about whether the heart sound could serve as a distinguishing feature, like a fingerprint. The entire person resonates in the human heart sound. Depending on the tone with which the nervous system affects the blood vessels, which substances pass from the body into the blood, what thoughts we think, what feelings we feel, and what air we breathe, the nature of our blood flow changes\u2014and with it, the sound of our heart. And yet something remains unmistakably unique, allowing us to recognize ourselves as individuals within it. When we listen to our \u201cheart sounds\u201d and encounter the flow of our blood within them, we can sense how it shapes landscapes. We can ask ourselves what influences we wish to allow to flow into it through our breath, our thoughts, and our nourishment. How do we want to\u2014and how can we\u2014rest humbly in our hearts? Within the life-affirming interplay between forming and being formed, creating and being created?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Translation <\/strong>Laura Liska<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The heart doesn\u2019t just pump\u2014it also listens to the flow of blood. Between stillness, expansiveness, and warmth, a living cycle reveals itself. To turn toward the heart is to turn toward the place where love becomes the impulse of life. What does it mean to listen to one\u2019s heart? To act from the heart? To rest in the heart? How can we move toward this place that knows our very individual path? How do we find a connection to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22938,"featured_media":74495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8788,8825],"tags":[11842,11844,8814],"class_list":["post-74668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-essay-en","category-natural-sciences","tag-ausgabe-39-40-2026-en","tag-english-issue-41-2026","tag-musings"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22938"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74668"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74688,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74668\/revisions\/74688"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dasgoetheanum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}