Life’s Two Truths : Holding Celebration and Mourning in our Hearts

Honouring our pain for the world is a way of valuing our awareness, first, that we have noticed, and second, that we care.

- Joanna Macy

“It seems to me, that if we love, we grieve. That’s the deal.
That’s the pact. Grief and love are forever intertwined.
Grief is the reminder of the depths of our love and, like love,
grief is non-negotiable.”

- Nick Cave
 

4th February, 2024

 
How has your week been? 

It can be a tough gig, this being human, even at the best of times. Right now, it feels particularly challenging. I don't know about you, but my heart aches most days, as I try to find room for the immensity of suffering that we are witnessing in the world.

My mind says "it's unbearable". I fight it, I wriggle and squirm, try to wrestle and bargain and argue my way around and out of it. But I can't. That doesn't help. It only amplifies the pain already present, adding fuel to the fire. 

With no real choice I surrender, and I'm left with the pain, the openness, and the tenderness. I'm left with the question, what can I do? What is truly mine to do? I soften, Iisten, and my heart says "This, too, I can love". 

As Russell Delman says - "the human heart either breaks open, or breaks closed". We either shut down and fragment into deeper pain and isolation, or we open further into the vast heart of loving awareness that can embrace it all, where there was never any separation to begin with. For many of us, to break closed is simply not an option, although sometimes we may wish it was. So, we open.

How do we actually do this? How do we learn to live without creating more 'Us and Them', without dividing against ourselves or each other? How do we learn to truly bear compassionate witness, to hold, to love and to grieve everything and everyone in this world? What can we each do to transform the ecosystem in which we live? This is our challenge, and our monumental, sacred task.

Firstly, we need to be able to acknowledge and honour what it is we're actually feeling. To not deny, pretend, avoid, or shut down. To feel what we're feeling, and see that like everything in life, it is moving and changing constantly. Nothing is as permanent as our belief that it is so. 

Gently, gently, we must find a way to keep moving in the direction of love. At every edge, every sharp corner, every gritty uncomfortable challenge we face, the invitation is to open, or at least lean in, to move towards with curiosity and interest, rather than pull away in anger and fear. 

We move in the direction of love every time one of us chooses to be curious instead of angry, every time we choose to sit in the exquisite discomfort of not-knowing, every time we choose not to create enemies out of our fellow humans even if we passionately and vehemently disagree with their views and actions, every time we choose peace rather than aggression. It is brave, gritty, and essential work. And where does this take place? In the inner architecture of our own bodies, hearts and minds. 

It is so much easier when we do this together. When we are with others we enlarge our capacity to be with the very personal. We remember we are not alone. Sharing and witnessing each other's very personal experience can be healing, and when held wisely in an embracive view, inevitably leads us to see the universal and liberating potential in our experience.

When I'm struggling to be with the heartbreak, anguish and disbelief, it does help me to think of all the other people - you included - who I know are also struggling to find a way to be with this. There are so many people of good heart and conscience who are making huge effort to keep their hearts open to these situations, because we know that to perpetuate the hatred, the greed, and the ignorance will not change a damn thing. It hurts, and it's hard. And it is also very, very good. As we stretch in new ways, we find room in ourselves for others. As Walt Whitman said"I am larger. I contain multititudes." All of life, and every other living being, lives inside of us. 

Our pain, our grief, and our love for the world are a vital sign of life, a measure of our spiritual health and our deepest humanity.


Holding Celebration and Mourning in our Hearts

To this end, Wendy Haynes and I invite you to our FREE online session that we've now called"Life's Two Truths : Holding Celebration and Mourning in our Hearts". 
Of course, there are many more truths than just these two, but these two are such ever-present companions and profound teachers in this human life that they are worth exploring.

We are capable of....no, wired to, experience joy and sorrow. We celebrate, and we mourn. We love, and we grieve. By acknowledging these truths of our experience, we also begin to nudge in the direction of what is larger, greater, than these seeming opposites. The heart that can hold it all. Containers that do not contain. 

We warmly invite you to this open session on Saturday 24th February (9am - 10am AEST / 11am - 12pm NZT). Find your time zone here

This will be a space to acknowledge and honour our celebration and our mourning, and the power of them both to open and enlarge our hearts. The session will offer you a taste of our in-depth 6 month online program, and the connection, community, and courageous conversations that are the heart of the program. 

You can register for this FREE event here.

We would love to share it with you! If you can't make it live, you are welcome to still register and you will be sent a recording after the event.

Let's keep leaning in, and opening our hearts together.