Hearts and Arrows
A heart (red or pink) with an arrow piercing through it is the most common shape and look for a Valentines, and even candles, candies, cookies, cakes, figurines, stuffed images, etc.
It's not clear when the valentine heart shape became the symbol for the heart. Some scholars speculate that in the 12th century, physicians believed that the heart was the seat of love and affection in the human body and shape came from early attempts by people to draw an organ they'd never seen.
Some people are guessing that the Valentine heart-shape as we know it today was done by a doodler to represent the human female buttocks or a female torso with well-endowed breasts or the imprint of lips (wearing lipstick) made upon a piece of paper.
In China, the heart is related to thought, life, and emotions. It brings together everything from understanding and recognition to the flow of emotions. The Romans thought the heart contained the soul. Before them, ancient Egyptians believed the heart to be the center of emotions - and intellect. And before them all... pictures on cave walls depicted animals with red hearts in the center of their bodies - evidence that even cave dwellers understood the heart's significance.
It's, once again, it's all how you want to spin the story! But any way it's not difficult to figure out the connection between the heart and Valentine's Day. The heart, after all, was thought in ancient times to be the source of all emotions. It later came to be associated only with the emotion of love.
The heart is a symbol both of love and also vulnerability. When you send someone a Valentine, you take a risk of being rejected and your feelings hurt. So a piercing arrow is a symbol of death and the vulnerability of love. On the other hand, the heart and arrow also symbolize the merging of the male and female as one.
Wearing Your Heart on Your Sleeve
This expression comes from early 1800's where young American and British men wore slips of paper pinned to their sleeves with their girlfriend's name written on. They did this for several days and so it started the expression "wearing one's heart on one's sleeve."
As well In the middle Ages, young men and women drew names from a bowl to see who their valentines would be. They would wear these names on their sleeves for one week. To wear your heart on your sleeve now means that it is easy for other people to know how you are feeling.
Heart Signs and they are mining's
The heart sign is as old as ,
,
,
,
, and
.
Its meaning for the people living in Europe before the last Ice Age of course is not known, but since these Cro-Magnons were hunters one can be reasonably sure it meant that life sustaining organ pumping around the blood of the organism every second of its lifetime.
Graphically
is related to , the sign for fire and for flight in the Middle Ages, and one of the most common signs in Western ideography. It is also related to , Aries, its graphic counterpart among the open sign structures, and to , for union or togetherness.
It is probable that
began as , a pictorial sign for the heart of a man or an animal.
Nowadays, at least in Sweden, is associated with the behind and defecation, as it is an old sign for a toilet for both sexes.
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