The Cardiovascular System

The circulatory system, powered by the grapefruit-sized muscular organ we call the heart, is connected to the element Fire, and needs warmth, stimuli, and movement to be healthy. Like fire, the heart and the blood it ceaselessly pumps around our bodies are never still.

This system and its health, acute illnesses, and chronic challenges often offers us teachings around joy and gratitude, playfulness or over-seriousness. Holding grudges, a lack of willingness to forgive, and withholding of love for self and others are all challenges that can impede the successful workings of this fantastically exuberant system. These challenges can cause us to “harden” our hearts, which can lead to hardening of the arteries, or arteriosclerosis.

In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) the heart is associated with the nervous system and with Spirit. It is vitally connected to our sense of joy. Joy is beneficial to the heart, and a healthy heart is beneficial to our joy. Grounded joy is not manic nor in need of jumping up and down and talking and laughing loudly. It can be expressed as wild rejoicing, but natural joy stems from peace within; it is peaceful and present, vital, and accepting of what is, even as it naturally tends toward increasing joy for all.

The heart is a powerful, muscular organ. It is kept so busy providing blood to every cell in our bodies, and continuously bringing the blood back to itself and then to the lungs to be oxygenated, that we have an additional, separate circulatory system for it; the coronary circulation system exists solely to feed the heart muscle itself! The heart is designed to give and receive continuously, which is as apt a metaphor as you could want for the heart of being human.