Keeping your heart open

Rebecca Campbell

This is probably one of the biggest challenges of Life, and I would say these times in particular: keeping your heart open through the extremes. From the ecstasy to the agony, the joy to the grief, the love to the loss.

We can’t bypass the difficult parts of being human if we want to truly experience the bliss. No one is immune to the highs and lows of the human experience and especially not in these times.

We can’t avoid the separation if we want to truly be in union. We can’t pretend the pain isn’t there if we want to truly heal. Personally. And collectively. Especially now.

rebecca campbell rose in hand small

If we close our hearts off to the grief, we risk bring able to fully experience the joy. Of tasting the sweetness. Nature teaches us this. The rose teaches us this.

She knows that if She doesn’t open Herself to each of the changing seasons, come spring there will be no bud. Come summer there will be no bloom. And come autumn there will be no fruit. The rose shows us how to open to the world, no matter what the day brings.

Birth teaches us this too. When She finds a way to somehow breathe and open through the agony, ecstasy may follow. Through the sometimes brutal contractions She prepares for Her first meeting with Her beloved.

And after the thunderous roaring is over, Her mind is blown as she observes a miracle occurring right before Her eyes. The safer the mother feels, the more she can open. May we all find the courage and safety to stay open.  

Peony Rebecca campbell

There is a lot of grief and heart ache in the world right now. So much disbelief, division and confusion. From the never-ending wild fires to the land and people of Afghanastan. From being separated from loved ones for far too long to watching our our babies grow in the soil of these uncertain times.

I know I am not alone in feeling the many layers of grief. Known and unknown. Spoken and hidden. Personal and collective. Acknowledged and Unacknowledged.

Feeling confused and called, overwhelmed and open, blessed and undone, tired and triggered, guilty and grateful, betrayed and privileged, hopeful and helpless at the seeming relentless labouring of this world. Inner and outer. 

Rebecca Campbell Glastonbury Abbey

And as so often happens when the metronome of our life begins to slow, there are blessings and sweetness here also. We must relish the sweetness, the healing and the blessings when they are here. And they are always here. That is courageous. To stay open through the extremes. To feel the agony so that the ecstasy can too be here.

rose garden

Living and dying with your heart open is truly a courageous act, as a life well lived is full of losses and tragedies as well as great love, triumphs, and adventures. When we’re going through difficult times (and as a planet we certainly are), when we most want to separate, the healing is almost always found in some form of connection not separation. Connection to ourselves. Connection to each other. Connection to the planet. 

When we cut off from our feelings we cut ourselves off from ourselves, each other and the earth. When we close our heart and shut down because the pain is too much, we often find ourselves feeling more separate and alone than before.

If we are threads in a great tapestry may we each be led in our own simple way to weave what we came here to weave into the fabric of humanity. If we are seeds, maybe we have seeded within us, the future rose gardens for humanity on earth.

Garden

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