I've experienced this maybe two dozen times over the past 15 years. And there's been many more moments where I feel on the verge of it, where the melting might release this honey in my chest. It occured fairly strongly tonight while I was watching that show where beautiful homes are built for disadvantaged people. The melting in my chest and the dripping of nectar seemed to happen as I was feeling gladness for this family. But it was spontaneous, so locating how it all came about would be futile. There was no trance state involved.

This isn't the same as the Holy Spirit descending and filling, but if I recall correctly this release of nectar has occured as a response to contemplative grace before. This seems necessary in me in order to re-kindle hope, as there was so little experience of love during my early formative years. That nectar is so deeply refreshing and effortless, and makes much else of my life seem so laborious and numb; yet it wasn't ecstatic - just nourishing and rich and quietly delightful, as life is supposed to be.

Anybody have a similar experience?

Last year I experienced a series of raptures in my chest area. It would usually happen while contemplating Christ or the cross. Just a bursting out of the heart which only lasted a minute or so. Sounds very similar to what you describe because of the sweetness in my chest. Very sweet. Yet rapture is the right word because of the bursting ecstatic feeling, then the subsequent sweetness and rapt awe. Sometimes it would happen in my bed at night while thinking of Christ; other times I would be walking along the street with bags of groceries when my mind would turn to the Saviour and BAM, my chest bursting with sweet rapture like a bursting balloon filled with water.

It happened maybe a dozen times but I haven't had it for a while. I don't know how or why but it probably had something to do with grounding in prayer life. A consolation and establishing of faith.

Yes, the bursting happens also, and perhaps more often, but not usually with the sweetness to follow, as in your case. That bursting comes during prayer or as I'm falling asleep, usually an explosion in my chest going down my arms or elsewhere in my body. What tends to happen here is a melting and then the sweetness, as though something has been tenderizing for awhile. Although we probably can't really know, with me there seems to be more of a need of healing within the "love thy neighbor" dimension before there is what you are describing.

It all comes and goes on its own, and I've never recently tried to pursue it via meditation: much more of a gift, or just slow ripening.

I've not experienced nectar as described here, but have spoken to others who have. Some described its appearance in the back of the throat, and found it most soothing and sweet. Gopi Krishna refers to it somewhere in his writings, I forget where.

Sounds wonderful.

Phil:

I somewhat suspect, at least based upon my own history, that the sweetness is present in those like yourself, but not experienced as such as it is more a common state of being. When anguish is long-term, then just a little restoration in the heart seems miraculous, whereas others who don't labor in this way are already feeling a more steady state of love or spaciousness that doesn't stand out. As I said, there was the sense that this his how life could be, even in a fallen condition.

I can still feel a residual effect this morning.

I'd love for this to level out into a calm, steady joy in the Holy Spirit, where Christ and the sweetness of reflection isn't far away at any time.

Yes, alas . . . . . .

Although the nectar or honey arises spontaneously in my heart, it isn't always, seemingly, in direct response to supernatural grace that this happens. For myself, it can sometimes happen, or verge on it, when I'm letting go of emotional struggles and just feeling the sensations inside my body that are the contractions related to those dramas. This is the melting, but lesser qualities of the nectar come and go. What I know about this melting is that it can only happen when letting go of polarizing around an issue, and accepting both sides as bodily energy holds each.

So while the nectar in its purer form is a natural grace response of the heart to implied supernatural grace, there is a letting go of trying to manage emotional pain in my head that seems to contribute to the tenderizing or ripening allowing these fuller openings. The state of gladness for others in which the last nectar release occured is a state of awareness in which polarization ceases, if only momentarily.

w.c, it seems your experience of nectar has to do with purification (forgiveness). Last year I had had similar expereince. Spontaneously, oily like fluid appeared at different parts of my body especially it was pronounced at my chest and head. This fluid has a sticky character. I rarely see this fluid this year. As I understood it (in my case) it has to do with the ongoing purification process. When the dense energies within our soul burned off by the inexplicable love of Christ the result of this process appeared in different forms of fluid on our physical body. In my case sometimes a sensation of cold air accompanied this process to cool down the heat created by friction. It is now I began to understand what was going on. When we letting go of our emotional struggle we invite Christ to forgive our sin. This means he burned off our accumulated dense energies in our soul. This is really amazing grace at work.

Grace:

Yes, I would agree with your description. In my case it certainly has to do with purification of the will. That's why I said to Phil that since he has passed through much of this purgative stage there is less of such relief to notice. And yes, it does feel like the dissolving of density into a greater pourosity.

Last night I was letting go of a resentment, just feeling it without choosing any sides in the story, and letting it be there. In the past I've known the Holy Spirit to be working in this beyond my faculties, but this deliberate letting go is just what I can do on my end.

Also, I'd say for me there is a human relational quality that is crucial. The more I let others in and tolerate their imperfections and my own, the more of this nourishment in my heart arises. So it is forgiveness through the Holy Spirit but also learning to exercise my will in a more open or soft way regarding the interactions I have with people.

quote:

Originally posted by w.c.:
[qb] Anybody have a similar experience? [/qb]

Hi WC,

I'm pretty sure Francisco De Osuna, author of Third Spiritual Alphabet (Spain, 1627) had a similar experience. He is very attuned to the heart. "Guard the heart with all vigilance," he wrote, "for all life issues forth from it.' That, he says, is his favorite teaching.

He also speaks often about the sweet taste of honey. In the little sections of the honeycomb, Osuna saw the many mansions of heaven and in a token drop pressed out of a single section, he knew the sweetness of devotion, a foretaste of glory. In wax melted by flame, ready for the seal, Osuna saw the devout soul, made soft and tender by holy desire.

You are in devout company.

Ryan:

I've read some of De Osuna's Spiritual Alphabet, but hadn't seen what you're referencing. What I'm noticing about my own experience is that the honey releases as the contraction releases through increased openness to others in terms of simple gratitude, or gladness for their own happiness. It comes in small moments, and is no indication of the degree of purification Grace and Phil have undergone, as I still struggle with some pretty simple things.

The front of the body is relational, and functions best when we are enjoying the presence of others in a simple way that requires not so much mental activity. Just keeping somebody company, which I get to do every day, seems to foster this de-contraction. There's a real, childlike enjoyment in settling in and just receiving the person of the other. Children seem to enjoy this through play, which is a kind of celebration of the relationship. We adults tend to not see that as the primary function of play, and can miss it entirely in most forms of leisure which are task-oriented.

However, I'd add that as we open to others in this way, there can be an activation of the contraction that brings exiled parts of the self into awareness, and they don't always come in a pleasing form, and require a certain kind of attention, and even the company of others who know how to be present without being intrusive.

quote:

Originally posted by w.c.:
[qb] I've read some of De Osuna's Spiritual Alphabet, but hadn't seen what you're referencing. [/qb]

Osuna speaks of this taste of honey flowing from the melted heart mainly in the fifth treatise, chapter three: "How you are to learn from experience."

He says that such an experience does not mean one has attained spiritual perfection, but it is a spirtual grace, infused in the soul to encourage heavenly hope.

"Each spiritual grace infused into the soul can be called the recipient's hope, for our Lord's favor greatly raises our hope and our conjecture is quite certain that he will feed the honeycomb of his heavely glory to the one he lets taste one drop of it in this exile."

In the 18th treatise, chapter 4, "How necessary it is to grow in humility," Osuna writes;

"Sublime humility enkindled by charity is the cause of this attitude because the humble person does not know how to continue seeing his treasure while unable to lift his eyes from his faults. He acts toward God like a beggar at the church door who conceals his healthy limbs and displays only the afflicted, bemoaning his condition which the fervent desire that others will believe him and sympathize with him.

The humble sit confidently at the door of mercy, though they dare not enter with the presumptuous for they still do not consider themselves worthy to be heard. With the voice of prayer, they display their defects, which are wounds in the soul, before God and all his saints, and they conceal their goodness as if they did not possess any.... caring for humans to whom it submits solely for God's sake as it contemplates God in them.

Prideful do not act in this way. Like merchants they place their best produce on top and conceal the worst underneath. They hide their faults and broadcast the good they seem to have."

quote:

Originally posted by w.c.:
[qb]..contraction that brings exiled parts of the self into awareness [/qb]

Osuna writes: "God grants... a drop of honey... from the honeycomb of beatitude to refresh and sustain the combatants who are unwillingly set in the den of the body among lions and bestial movements."