The news this morning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine broke my heart wide open. Though I’ve been following the news and knew that such an attack was likely, I kept hoping that diplomacy could avert it. At first I felt my heart contract, not wanting to feel the grief that was welling up.
So I sat in meditation with an
Open Heart
to what is, allowing the sorrow to rise and tears to come. This is a sad day for the world.
And I think that sadness and grief are appropriate responses.
In these dark and uncertain times, there can be great value in imagining a bit of star in each human soul.
Not just that it gives some hope for humanity at a time when man’s inhumanity to man seems ever on the increase; but also because it points to an inner brightness
that can light the way
in dark times. — Michael Meade
It is better to feel the pain of the world than to ignore it or try to cover it up with false smiles. Beauty still exists. And wonder can be found. But the darkness also exists.
“With an open heart, we pour love into the world.”
― Conscious Cures: Soulutions to 21st Century Pandemics
This poem by (who else?) Mary Oliver speaks to my feelings today.
Lead
Here is a story
to break your heart.
Are you willing?
This winter
the loons came to our harbor
and died, one by one,
of nothing we could see.
A friend told me
of one on the shore
that lifted its head and opened
the elegant beak and cried out
in the long, sweet savoring of its life
which, if you have heard it,
you know is a sacred thing,
and for which, if you have not heard it,
you had better hurry to where
they still sing.
And, believe me, tell no one
just where that is.
The next morning
this loon, speckled
and iridescent and with a plan
to fly home
to some hidden lake,
was dead on the shore.
I tell you this
to break your heart,
by which I mean only
that it break open and never close again
to the rest of the world.— Mary Oliver
May you walk in beauty. May your heart be open.
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