Settling into these days of “sheltering in place“ we are gaining perspective about what is important.
After the house has been cleaned, closets and garage and basement and attic spaces organized, conversations begin to unfold lovingly – the ones that have needed to emerge for too long.
This spring, which I am naming Containment 2020, a deeper appreciation for life is growing within each and everyone of us, finally. This appreciation is something we have all wanted either desperately or subconsciously. And as our inspirations have always arrived, this one has also arrived suddenly and surprisingly; laced with fear and tentative steps forward.
I woke with a dream image of a white haired man upside down with his arms and legs flailing, his head buried in cement.
I understood this to mean that the foundation we have stood on must break, lovingly so as to respect life as best we can. Everything we understand about economic value, all of the systemic frames that have been defined for us by the wealthy, the landowners, the descendants of the successful elite, must be confronted – both within our minds and hearts as well as in our communities as widely as we can define them.
But confrontation must not be undertaken in the way that it has been previously. We Are Not War and must not act like it. We Are Love, and have a great and growing capacity for being gentle with each other, for seeing each other – warts and all. Why don’t we begin by holding hands with the ones who most irritate us (virtually or while wearing face masks and gloves if needed). Let’s watch our hearts crack open, even a little bit so that the light can emerge.
Here is a little poem that I wrote many years ago, called Stained Glass, Healing Heart:
Heartbreak Shatters the Shell around the Heart and Awakens its Capacity to Love.
Sheltering in place is the blessing that I have prayed, and wished, for the planet. It is coming with very significant costs to lives that will affect all of us, perhaps our own life. As all of this unfolds, we have a choice. Let’s choose to make love with every day, every relationship, so that the rainbow colors of life resonate out from our hearts and hands, gently shifting the paradigms we believe, the lenses and frameworks we look through, and the grounds upon which we stand, together.
And here is a poem that I have been reading each morning. It was included in a sermon by Sandra Boston over a year ago and shared with me by my friend Ian after I’d shared with him Kristin Flyntz’ poem (which I’ve named Containment 2020):
I will not die an unlived life
I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
to allow my living to open me
to make me less afraid,
more accessible,
to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance,
to live so that which came to me as seed goes to the next as blossom,
and that which came to me as blossom goes as fruit.
— Dawna Markova from The Art of the Possible
