Purpose
The Central Sun of Body and Spirit
The heart is the first distinct manifestation of "you" following conception - the starting drumbeat of your exciting human adventure. Like a sun radiating from the centre of your body, it represents your courage and contains a brain whose abilities go beyond the one in your head. As the four-chambered, two-way pump of your circulatory system, it sends out fresh, oxygenated blood and receives carbon-dioxide-filled blood back for removal. Any issue the heart has is a red flag around your connectedness to life. If it stops working altogether, you quickly cease this human journey.
In Susan Drury's understanding, the heart is far more than a pump. Modern research has confirmed what ancient traditions have always known: the heart has its own neural network - a "heart brain" - that processes information independently of the cranial brain. The heart generates the body's most powerful electromagnetic field, measurable several feet beyond the body. It is, in the most literal sense, the radiant centre of your being - the organ through which love flows, both inward and outward.
Susan often speaks of the heart as the body's "central sun" - the source of warmth, light, and life that sustains every other organ and system. Just as the sun gives light to the entire solar system, the heart gives life to the entire body. And just as the sun must burn from its own fuel, the heart must be nourished from within before it can nourish the world. This is the Heart card's most essential teaching: you cannot give what you have not first received.
◇ Inquiry
When the Heart Gives Out
As the finely-tuned "central sun" of body and spirit, our heart can become clogged with ongoing dismay, "disheartening" experiences, or relationships that "break our hearts." We can "dis-courage" our heart and its higher, guiding wisdom when we discount the gift of this life and our own inherent value. The heart can literally "give out" when we are giving out too much of our "life blood" through over-responsibility for others. Only by "filling our own chambers" first, through balanced giving and receiving, can we open-heartedly channel love into the world.
"The heart is not a bottomless well. It is a four-chambered vessel that must fill before it can give. When we pour out our life blood without replenishing - when we give and give and give without receiving - the heart eventually gives out. The Heart card is a reminder: fill your own chambers first. Then love can overflow naturally, without depletion."
Susan's work with the heart is central to her entire philosophy of Elevating to Love. The heart is not merely one card among twenty-one - it is the card that all other cards orbit around, just as the physical heart is the organ that all other organs depend upon. When the heart is open, balanced, and nourished, every other system in the body - and every other area of life - benefits. When the heart is closed, depleted, or broken, everything suffers.
✦ Transcendence
The Affirmation Your Heart Has Been Waiting to Hear
"I am a Divinely-inspired human, following my inner drumbeat toward new revelations and expressions of love and support."
"To and through me does love flow, abundantly filling my own cup and overflowing in joyful generosity into the world."
"I anchor my body in the courageous and sacred pulse of life, connected through the wisdom of my heart to the All that Is."
Read these words aloud and place your hand over your heart. Feel its steady rhythm ... the drumbeat that has been with you since before you were born. This is the most faithful companion you will ever have. The transcendence is an invitation to honour this companion, to fill its chambers with love, and to trust its wisdom above the noise of the mind.
Working with the Heart Card
Heart Listening
Place your hand on your heart and close your eyes. Ask your heart a question - any question that matters to you. Then listen. Not with your mind, but with your body. Notice what you feel, what images arise, what knowing emerges. The heart brain communicates through sensation and intuition.
Giving and Receiving Audit
Make two columns: what you give and what you receive. Be honest. If the giving column is significantly longer, the Heart card is asking you to rebalance. Where can you receive more? Where can you give less? Filling your own chambers is not selfish - it is essential.
Courage Practice
The word 'courage' comes from the Latin 'cor' - heart. Choose one thing you have been afraid to do and do it. Not recklessly, but with the heart's wisdom guiding you. The Heart card reminds you that true courage is not the absence of fear - it is the heart's decision that something matters more than fear.
About the Creator
Susan Drury - Heart-Centred Healer
Susan Drury's entire body of work is, at its core, about the heart - about learning to live from the heart's wisdom, to give and receive love in balance, and to trust the heart's courage above the mind's fear. The Heart card is the centrepiece of the Elevated Body deck, just as love is the centrepiece of Susan's teaching. Explore her vision for the elevated life.
Learn More About SusanFrequently Asked Questions
What does it mean that the heart has its own brain?
Research at the HeartMath Institute and elsewhere has confirmed that the heart has its own complex neural network - approximately 40,000 neurons - that can sense, feel, learn, and remember independently of the cranial brain. The heart brain communicates with the head brain through multiple pathways, and in many cases, the heart sends more information to the brain than the brain sends to the heart.
How does the Heart card relate to the other body cards?
The Heart card is the central card of the Elevated Body deck - the card that all other cards orbit around. Just as the physical heart sustains every other organ, the Heart card's teaching of balanced giving and receiving, of courage, and of self-nourishment supports the work of every other card in the deck.
What does 'filling your own chambers' mean practically?
It means ensuring that you receive as much as you give - in love, in energy, in time, in attention. It means saying no when your heart is depleted. It means allowing others to give to you. It means treating self-care not as a luxury but as the foundation upon which all genuine generosity is built.
Follow Your Inner Drumbeat
Your heart has been beating for you since before you were born ... the most faithful companion of your human journey. It is time to listen to its wisdom, fill its chambers with love, and let its courage guide you toward the life you were born to live.