Speak to the hard, numb, raw, vulnerable and painful sensations in your body
Witness these with an offering of words lacking the harshness of judgement, usher in the sweet, sweet sounds of fierce kindness, compassion and tenderness.
Place your hands carefully and lovingly on your own soft, warm body where you feel the sharp, jagged edges of pain/despair/rage/grief.
Breath into your blessed self, place your hands on your heart, feeling your aliveness in these dark times that also hold the possibility of changing our way of doing life/everything.
This is an act of courage and resistance right now, to dare to dream and vision a world, a community that is resourced for all beings, where we can freely and safely navigate without harm and live in peace.
Hold yourself here and all of us who have been told we feel too much, are too sensitive, need to focus on the positive, resist the urge to swallow this down, move into the enormity of your grief, your outrage and pain. Observe, titrate and witness these, tracing them back to love.
I tell myself this: “I feel pain for the world because I love life. I love this planet.”
Caring deeply about the suffering of other beings is the root of empathy.
Beloved environmental justice, deep ecology and Buddhist teacher Joanna Macy speaks of the path of pain opening up into empathy which guides compassionate action, rooted and grounded in the awareness of how connected we actually are to one another as humans, to other species and to the planet herself which is a living, breathing organism.
Moving through, we create a vast container, a container so spacious that when you move through the enormity of your own suffering with empathy, joy is here. So is awe, wonder and curiosity. All moving through you like waves, washing clear the layers of trauma. Cradling you, breathing courage into your willingness to love a world that is both broken and wonderful.
