“The heart is the hub of all sacred places. Go there and roam.”
~ Bhagawan Nityananda
may we go into the deep, dark, & quiet of our heart, where love springs forth. may we rediscover who we are in love. may such love fill us fully, leaving no room for indifference, for exclusion, for cruelty, for hate. from such space of love may we speak & act for the benefit of all who suffer, leaving no one outside of our empathy & compassion. may our own journey become a catalyst for healing action in this, our shared, world.
friends, we are called to love & love isn’t silent in the face of harm. it won’t get any easier to speak out than it is right now. so let us speak out with love – fierce love – for our country, our democracy, for our fellow human beings. we must keep our hearts open, engage empathy, & practice courage. may we speak out with love as best as we can in so far as we can & are able, while we still can.
“No more apologies for a bleeding heart when the opposite is no heart at all. Danger of losing our humanity must be met with more humanity.” ~ Toni Morrison
please pay attention to your heart, keeping it open, vulnerable & tender to the sight of suffering. have the courage to be moved & grieved by the suffering we are bearing witness to & then to speak out & take appropriate loving action.
Netanyahu would have us believe mass death, starvation, & ethnic cleansing is necessary for the safety & security of Israel. Trump would have us believe that rounding up people in mass without due process or consideration, separating families, & resurrecting internment camps is necessary for US security & safety.
don’t be fooled. they would ask for your humanity, your very soul, offered up on a platter out of fear & desperation. the very qualities that make cruelty, harm, & destruction not only possible, but preferred. thick in delusion, they offer up a starkly dark reality. a reality inconsistent with a path of love. they are not speaking or acting from a space of love, so abandon them & align with love! know who you are & anchor yourself in love, set your sights on love, allow love to pour out from your broken heart through your words & actions with both tenderness & fierce compassion. love is the antidote to hate, compassion is the antidote to indifference.
tyrants never grew up. they are stunted in their emotional intelligence. all of our current tyrants are no different. they haven’t done the inner work of growing up & growing out. opening of mind to awareness of the other & then that there is no other. expanding & softening of the heart towards all life, rather than a closing & hardening that excludes. it’s their way or the highway & don’t even think of getting in their way. anything to avoid discomfort, their cruelty comes easily.
saints, on the other hand, are incredibly courageous. they go right into the difficulty & discomfort carrying with them the wisdom that their dark night of the soul is necessary and a gift, the inner journey that opens their eyes, mind, & heart to our interdependence, union, & our necessity to each other. saints carrying in their hearts the grown-up & vast love that benefits our world.
let us have the courage to do the inner work that enables us to be saints & bring benefit to our world.
how would such a view look in our lives, in our words & actions, if we were to take such a belief seriously? who could we exclude from being our neighbor? what would loving our neighbor look like?
“You can survive on your own; you can grow strong on your own; you can prevail on your own; but you cannot become human on your own.”
~ Frederick Buechner
our humanity is defined by our relationship to life, because life IS relationship, love IS relationship.
when we dismiss the lives, the value, the sacredness of others & our interdependence with them, we are in danger of losing our humanity, or if not losing it, at least acting outside of our humanity & bringing immense harm to others & eventually to ourselves as well.
The Metta Garden 