We come into this life completely open. Expecting to be loved. Enchanted with ourselves.
And we learn to close. Each time we are rejected by another, or shamed for being in touch with our bodies, or scolded for playing in the mud, we close.
And as we lose our connection to our bodies, we no longer can feel what it means that 850 million of our fellow human beings are hungry. As we lose our connection to the earth, we cannot grasp that our needs for bottled water and other petty conveniences are destroying the planet for future generations.
As we lose our connection to the majesty of who we are, we give in to fear. Every time we play it safe, we sell ourselves short. Every time we reject our true calling, we squander our precious human potential.
I need you, my children need you, the island nations that will be lost when the ocean levels rise need you to not do that anymore.
You can learn to open again. Open to the miracle of life on this fragile planet. Open to the suffering of others, and to the mystery of why you, of all those who have ever lived, are alive at this very moment when the future of our species is in doubt.
How do we open? By noticing when we are afraid, and leaning in anyway. By sitting in the woods or the park each day to rebuild the threads that connect us to the natural world. By looking, as the Buddhist teacher and activist Joanna Macy asks us to do, right into the face of these times, when everything we love is at risk.
“Don’t be afraid of your heart breaking open,” says Joanna. “The heart that breaks open can hold the whole universe. It’s that big.”
Take the risk. Open your heart to rejection and your work to failure. Open to the possibility that you are here to change the world.
