The Womb of Hearts

By Cecilia Velasquez

At the beginning of the study year, hybrid first year and on-site students of the Seminary gathered in Toronto with the Directors to get to know each other and mark the beginning of studies. We were asked to introduce ourselves and share our answer to the question: “What are you looking for?”. After a moment to reflect deep inside my soul an answer arose: “I am looking for a new heart.” I remembered what God promised to us in the Bible:

“And I will give you a new heart,

and a new spirit I will put within you.

And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh

and give you a heart of flesh.”

(Ezekiel 36:26, ESV Bible)

This looking for a new heart has become my guiding star as a seminarian.

In this trimester, we, “Walking with Christ” students, are learning about the fourfold constitution of the human in the light of anthroposophy (physical body, etheric body, astral, body, I). Each of these bodies actually requires a protective womb to form and develop. We could say that all processes of evolution involve a birth process. We find references to this birthing process in the encounter between Jesus and Nicodemus in John’s Gospel:

“Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, ‘Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.’ Jesus answered him, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.’ Nicodemus said to him, ‘How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?’ Jesus answered, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.  Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’” (John 3:1-7, ESV Bible)

Our physical body needs a mother’s physical womb; our etheric body, an etheric womb usually in the etheric body of a family; our astral body, an astral womb connected to our culture, our time, our place of birth… Our “I” also requires an I-like womb in the Spirit. The perfect I-like womb is Jesus Christ’s I and insofar as the human beings around us are able to reflect Jesus Christ’s I qualities, they create a womb and environment that helps our I develop in a healthy way. 

Let’s go back to the promise. What is the quality of the womb of the new heart that Ezekiel talks about? We intuitively relate this womb with love, real selfless love, the love Jesus Christ is constantly giving to humanity. In The Consecration of the Human Being, we hear “…in the Offering be born the fire of love, creative of being…” The fire of love has its womb in the act of offering, which in turn becomes the womb for “being”.

Candle at the center of our class. The stone was a gift for the Seminary. It belonged to Rudolf Steiner.

Jesus Christ is the being of love. Then is He Himself also the womb for the new human heart. A new human heart that will be able to love as He loved us, as He loves us constantly.

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35 ESV Bible)

Shortly after the beginning of my on-site studies, as I began to live my life as a seminarian and imbued myself in the Seminary culture of love and respect that fosters our inner development, I found myself feeling I was in the womb of hearts. Every time I share with my fellow seminarians that being in the Seminary feels to me like being in “The Womb of Hearts”, I always receive responses that confirm that this experience is not unique to me, and that, in one way or another, my peers feel the same way.

I am deeply grateful to the Seminary Directors, my fellow seminarians and the Christian Community in Toronto for being all part and parcel of this loving womb that helps transform our human hearts in and through our living in the community of Jesus Christ.

Our Author: Cecilia Velasquez

Walking With Christ student from Lima, Peru.

Cecilia is now in her second year of studies at the Seminary and has been part of the Christian Community since 2005. She has been married for 31 years and lives in Lima with her husband, her two daughters and two dogs.