 Today, I decided to crawl back out of the silence. The silence was familiar and actually quite comfortable. I grew up in this kind of silence and learned how to thrive there (as long as I could suffer the subtle level of ongoing anxiety.) When I chose to start speaking and blogging just over a year ago, I left the safety of my silence and stepped into a world where it felt like my entire body was an open wound.
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 Today, I was inspired to make the case for hope. So I began by thinking about all the things that bring me hope these days. They are not big things. They are, in fact, mostly small things. They are things like dancing my heart out on random Thursday nights with fabulous queer folks as we take over straight spaces and celebrate our lives with pride. Like gathering in rooms with like-minded, passionate souls as we make strategic plans for bringing justice and change to our communities; as we laugh and cry and rage together. Little things, like the stories of amazing acts of courage and positive action that get passed around on the internet, and the millions of such stories that we never even hear about. And I thought about the diverse and radical women who have won seats in political offices all over the country this year.
Then I sat and stared at my screen for awhile. Not because I didn't know where to go from there or that I didn't know what else to say about hope (I happen to have a lot of hope despite plenty of available evidence to the contrary), but because I knew that everything I wanted to say about hope has already been said. The best, most authentic, most beautiful argument for hope that I've ever read, I found in "Hope in the Dark" by Rebecca Solnit and I recommend that book to every human being currently living on the planet. So instead of writing my own message about hope, I'm going to share my favorite passages from that book. This is a serious cop-out as a blog writer, but these words speak for themselves so I'm doing it anyway. Enjoy. And here's to hope. “Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act. When you recognize uncertainty, you recognize that you may be able to influence the outcomes–you alone or you in concert with a few dozen or several million others. Hope is an embrace of the unknown and knowable, a alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists. Optimists think it will all be fine without our involvement; pessimists take the opposite position; both excuse themselves from acting. It’s the belief that what we do matters even though how and when it may matter, who and what is may impact, are not things we can know beforehand. We may not, in fact, know them afterward either, but they matter all the same, and history is full of people whose influence was most powerful after they were gone.” “Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency. Hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth's treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal... To hope is to give yourself to the future - and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.” “Hope just means another world might be possible, not promise, not guaranteed. Hope calls for action; action is impossible without hope.” “To hope is to gamble. It's to bet on your futures, on your desires, on the possibility that an open heart and uncertainty is better than gloom and safety. To hope is dangerous, and yet it is the opposite of fear, for to live is to risk.” Thanks Rebecca Solnit. Mad props to you.  Hi friends, family, people I love. What is happening in our country is as scary as it looks. It is real and it is building every day. If you have fears, they are spot on. If you are incredibly concerned, that’s accurate. If you feel angry, rage-full, and heartbroken, then you are paying attention. This is how we should feel and we should be processing our grief and anger deeply and personally. We should be leaning on one another and talking to one another and comforting one another and doing some badass self care.
And also. I need you to stop saying that you don’t know what to do. Let me explain. First of all, there is so much you can do. So much! Just look around. Get on facebook, google, ask your friends, read the news. Find out where the action is happening and loop yourself in. Or run for office. Or help someone else amazing run for office. As Andrew Harvey says, pick the issue that makes you most angry or breaks your heart the most. Then get on google and find out which organizations or candidates or groups are taking action on the things you care about. Join them, volunteer for them, work for them, get educated by them, bring your skills to them, give them money. I have a good friend who recently quit a very high paying desk job to become a political organizer for an LGBTQ activist organization. I have an acquaintance who rearranged her life so she could be a Spanish translator at the border for the kids and families living in cages built by our government. I have another friend who is feverishly writing books that ignite women into action. I have another friend who is way too busy finishing up a PhD, but supports the hell out of me and is a huge cheerleader for all those in her life who are on the front lines. I have other friends who are protesting with the Poor People’s Campaign (some who bring their children in carriers on their backs), some who chose to get arrested in acts of civil disobedience and others who have to go to work later, so they step back when asked by police. And then there are the volunteers for progressive candidates for the November election who are building grassroots movements to challenge the horrors that are coming from our country’s leadership. If you are already doing what you can, like these badasses I referred to, THANK YOU! I need you to take a breath and know that you are playing your part. Seriously, do that now. Know this in your heart. You are filling in the space made for you and the world is better for it. Your work is like sap on a tree that’s filling in the cracks. I need you to know you are doing enough. And for those of you who (might) show up at a protest but the rest of the time your life is the same as it has always been, I need you to wake up. And I need you to do it now. Or at the very least, I need you to stop telling me that you don’t know what to do because it’s really easy to find out and it’s really easy to get involved. There are amazing people doing amazing things in communities everywhere and they need help. Trust me, I'm always super surprised there aren't more people at the volunteer events I go to and organizations I work with. Saying you don't know what to do can also sound offensive to those people, some who have much fewer advantages, who are working really hard every day on many different issues (and have been doing so for a very long time). AND. If you can’t get involved, which of course there are valid reasons for that, then be like my PhD friend and be the best cheerleader around. When every single person plays their part, we can make a difference. There are actually more of us!! But if a percentage of the majority just continue on, not wanting to disrupt their lives, leaving the burden of the work to a smaller group of people sweating their asses off to protect people and the environment, then we have a bigger problem than simply the evils of the other side. Do not assume that “they” are going to figure it out or that November will solve our problems magically. Who are “they” and how do problems get solved? “They” are YOU and ME and problems get solved because we implement solutions. I, frankly, am stunned that any of us are doing anything remotely normal right now. Under the current circumstances, normal days concern me. So let’s respond to this very abnormal stuff that’s happening by letting our days be less normal too. Take care of yourself, get boosts from time with friends and family, ground yourself every morning and every night. And then please for the love of Goddess get involved because this ship is heading straight for the iceberg. "If what you are doing requires no sacrifice at all, then you can do more. If you are one of these folks who is watching cable news at your cocktail parties with your friends and you are saying 'civilization is collapsing' and you are nervous and worried, but that is not where you are putting all your time, energy and money, then either you don't actually think civilization is collapsing ... or you are not pushing yourself hard enough and I would push harder.” -Barack Obama  It is a great rebellion to keep your heart open in a world gone awry. Perhaps the greatest revolution there is. To look at the darkness and hate, the addiction to consumerism, the unconsciousness that falls like film over our eyes, and still demand your right to a full and open heart. It is a great rebellion, in a world that tells us happiness comes from things, from bigness and grandness, to take immense joy in simplicity, to live with little, to need little. To do what we love. To be free and empowered in our bodies. To hope. It is a revolution to wake up each morning, clear the debris from our hearts, open to whatever and wherever we may find connection, and chose to seize life by the balls. It is the greatest rebellion to live with wildness and freedom in a world that tells a million lies about limitation and scarcity. It is a revolution to speak and act and move from a place so deep in you that the world will be changed in ways we cannot always see with our eyes.
I live in a townhouse co-operative. We live in small homes and grow our gardens massively. We live amongst people speaking many languages, living many lifestyles, from many places, of many races. We are rebels reveling in our small patch of woods, growing food in our gardens, lining the sidewalks with lemonade stands, getting to know one another on our morning walks. We are recommunitizing our world. It is a daily revolution. What is happening in our country today is a test of just how rebellious and revolutionary our hearts will be. Will we chose that now is the time to start reclaiming our wildness? To start rebuilding our communities ourselves, leaving complacency and lies about our powerlessness as a story of the past, choosing instead to live straight from the heart. Will we strip these unconscious beliefs, let go of the ways we’ve agreed to the story, gather in community and create our own world; a world where connection is the fabric of existence, where we rebel by joining together all ages, races, nations, and revive our right to love? Will we use the greatest rebellion, the rebellion of a wild and free heart, to guide us into a new world? The rebellion is simple. The revolution is clear. It is a commitment to following in every moment, in every way, our free, wild, and open heart. Following it back to each other, back to the land. The greatest rebellion; the act of following our open heart, no matter what.  There’s a new popular song called “Sick Boy” by the Chainsmokers. I suggest reading all the lyrics as it is a powerful and poignant criticism of America. Here's a taste:
"And I'm from the east side of America Where we desensitize by hysteria And we can pick sides, but this is us, this is us, this is I live on the west side of America Where they spin lies into fairy dust And we can pick sides, but this is us, this is us, this is" The part of the song that keeps playing over and over in my head is the part that repeats “this is us, this is us”. America, this is us. As we watch in horror while immigrant children are rounded up into tent cities, we are reminded of the Native American children who were separated from their parents in an effort to force assimilation into white culture; of the tent cities that were built as internment camps for Japanese Americans; of mass incarceration of people of color which keeps extraordinary numbers of human beings locked up, ruining lives and families for generations. We are reminded of all the agreeing hands that it takes to create these horrors, all those who make the orders and all those who follow them. This is the underbelly of America, the America we like to ignore. It is also the underbelly of patriarchy, of a culture built on domination. Having grown up with a liberal background, politically, culturally, and religiously, I was often taught to question the dichotomy of good and evil. Evil was a belief held by more religious people and often used to demean the very values and lifestyles and freedoms I hold precious. I dabbled in New Age spirituality where the thinking is that those who act with hate or violence are projecting their pain or fear and deserve our compassion. Though this is true in the sense that hate is a projection, it is untrue that it is acceptable, valid, or understandable to hate. I know personally and professionally many people who have suffered trauma, who have been through unimaginable situations and experience levels of fear and pain for their whole lives. Yet, they have never committed acts of hate or violence. This is where evil begins to take its place in my paradigm. Evil comes from power and the self-serving hunger for power. Evil comes from heartlessness and the ability to look at another human being and think “worthless” or “mine”. Evil does not deserve compassion. It deserves moral outrage. It deserves accountability. It deserves to have power stripped from its hands until it is on its knees feeling the weight of remorse. What we see before us, my friends, is evil. And this evil is us. It is America. It has always been with us, though we have always preferred to see ourselves as better or different. As we take to the streets, as we activate our movement in response to atrocities, we take stock of this shadow. We look and say, “this is us. We are this.” We can no longer afford to live with these blind spots. May we go down in history for being the movement that reversed the trajectory of power, that turned the tides once and for all. To take a chapter out of a shamefully misused book, as the Bible says, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”  I am tired of people asking if I’m happy. I’m tired of that being the metric of the life we should all be living. I am tired of being asked how I’m doing and being expected to smile and say “fine”. “Great, I’m great. I’m fine. Everything is fine.” There are over 2,000 immigrant children being separated from their parents who were fleeing violence and poverty, right here in my country in my backyard. Dozens of trans people have been shot and killed this year. People of color continue to face state-sanctioned violence and murder from police. But I’m doing fine and that’s what matters isn’t it?
 You may have noticed my absence these two weeks. Last week, I planned to skip because I had family in town. This week, my heart has been elsewhere.
My heart has been in Gaza. My heart has been with the Palestinians. My heart has been on the streets with the Poor People’s Campaign. My heart has been with my brothers and sisters of color in this country. My heart has been with grieving families and raging souls. I have been broken open and falling in love every other hour. I have been awash in stories of injustice and violence. And, I have been surrounded by spiritual warriors who let their hearts bleed, who support one another with the fiercest kind of love, who work in brilliant ways, and who refuse to be silent. I have been inspired by the young, by the old, by the amazing power of our Ancestors, of the Great Mother as they rise through us. I have felt that awe-some feeling that comes at the end of a day where your full potential, all your purpose, all of your cells were engaged in what makes life meaningful. I have felt connected to all beings, all creatures, to the core of the Earth. And I have wailed into Her as She held me, saying over and over again “help us, help us, help us”. I have fled from flattened places, where life is sucked dry by the refusal to feel, to experience, to speak, and from people who hide in their small lives, who turn away, refusing to look truth in the eye. I have spat at language that it is veiled in niceties and religiosity. Language that it is manipulative, causing confusion even to clear seeing eyes like my own. Language that serves to make the powerless believe in their powerlessness. I have left all of that behind, for once and for all, my alliance is with the Truth. This Monday, in front of the Michigan State Capital in Lansing, I joined nearly 30 other faith leaders showing support for this new and old movement, the Poor People’s Campaign, all of us wearing our robes. I had misgivings about my own stol. I had acquired a complicated relationship with it. It came to represent for me how passivity and privilege can be spiritualized. But I wore it never the less. And on this day, I reclaimed what it meant to wear the symbols of all spiritual traditions around my neck. On this day, leaders of all faiths showered spiritual warriors with prayers. Members of the Poor People’s Campaign risking arrest to stand for the rights of the oppressed everywhere, under a government unlike one we have never seen in this country, stood as a group in front of the capital. All others present encircled them, placing our hands on their arms and shoulders, eyes closed. As prayers were spoken by Imams, Priests, and Rabbis, we sang Amen in every language, in every color, in every heart. THIS, I thought to myself, is what prayer was made for. THIS is why we pray. May we be protected in our deep, soulful action to defend the vulnerable, to defend our loved ones, our fellow beings, our planet, the things that are precious to us, the things that are real. May we be the best possible warriors of love and may we always know we have each other. May a web of interconnection bring our energy together so we may call on a force larger than ourselves. May we allow our lives and our hearts to be broken open so that we know we are alive and we hear our guidance. May God, Goddess, Mother Earth, the Universe support this work. Aho. This, my friends, is a moment in history. It is a turning point. We have only two ways to go. It is up to us and history will hold you and me accountable. This is a moment where our children will ask, where were you? What did you do? They will ask why we failed, or Goddess-willing, they will ask how we were so brave, so wild, and so transformative. The only people who thought we fixed things in the Civil Rights Movement are white people. People of color, the poor, the vulnerable have been wondering where we have been. We are too late. Far too late. But we are here now. I will use my privilege to be a mouthpiece. I will speak for the voiceless. I hope you will join me. And if you are looking for a way to show up, look no further, the Poor People’s Campaign is ready for you. A message to my fellow spiritual warriors of the Poor People’s Campaign (adapted from a previously posted poem). Let us know our power Let us shout from the rooftops And never stop Let us scream the truth into the eyes of the complacent And say everything without hesitation Then let us say nothing, nothing at all, as we sit in awe And drink in the world Let us not, not for a minute, wait for anyone Or anything To give us permission May we laugh at their fear And beat down the doors of our hearts And live, alive, never releasing our hold on what’s real May we know we were free No longer believing in their chains May we take each step as if riding on the hands of the Universe May we walk alone, and together, May we know the sound of our own voices And listen like our lives depend on it Now is the time to know we are powerful. To know we are free. Together we reclaim the land. We reclaim the streets. We reclaim our communities. We are the souls with beating, pounding hearts from just beneath the surface of the earth And we are rising. We are loud. We are angry. We are heartbroken. We are wise. We are alive. We will gather, take each other’s hands, and walk straight into the storm. See us, drawing ourselves up from the ground, wings spread. Ready to fly. Our voices are the instrument. Our bodies are the tools. Our hearts are the guides. Goddess, God, Universe, Mother Earth, hear us. Ancestors gather. Today is the day. May we walk on together.  Dear Fiery Woman,
I want to write you and tell you that I know what it's like. I know what it's like to feel the fire inside you rising, to feel sure of its danger, to feel sure it is too much for others, and maybe even too much for yourself. I hear you saying "What is this feeling? It is a feeling like something is happening, something BIG, and I don't know what to do with it. I am afraid of it, and yet I long for it. It is rising without my permission. It may upend everything." This is your inner fire, my dear woman, the fire that has been buried under centuries of oppression, fear, and silencing; the pillars of the Patriarchy. The fire that has been scorned, forced, raped, and pillaged out of you. The memory of your ancestors who died on the stake still lives within you, and you have been burned in this lifetime too. You have been burned at the stake with messages and acts, both subtle and loud, both significant events and quiet daily stabs, that ensure your silence, that ensure you remain afraid of yourself. This is what makes you fear the power of your fire, because the world has required you to do so in order to continue its path of destruction. I want you to know something very important. Listen carefully. This energy rising within you IS you. It is ALL of you. It is everything you are, buried under everything they have forced you to be. It is your truth, it is your aliveness, it is your voice, it is your seeing powers. Yes, you are actually that powerful, alive, sensual, knowing. Everything else is the casing you were made to wear so others were not bothered by your presence, your voice, your truth. It is like shackles, chains, things that are attached to you but are not you. Do not be afraid of the fire rising within you. It is actually who you are. It holds all of your truth. It is time to release the fire from within. The world is dying for it. You will be told often, in many ways, from many people both expected and not, that you were right to fear and hide your fire. That in fact, your aliveness, your truth, your wisdom, your passion, is dangerous and threatening, unloving or wrong. Please know, my dear woman, that this is the voice of the status quo. This is the voice that has kept your fire hidden deep within. This is why you have stayed small with a film over your eyes. It is painful and convincing, isn't it? When you hear that voice, it is your duty now to recognize it as the voice you are choosing to no longer listen to. Follow Rumi's instructions; "Set your life on fire and seek those who fan your flames." Find the voices that fan your flames and stay lit. This path is courageous, but you are not alone. Yes, my dear woman, this fire within you may upend your life, and with enough of us rising, it will upend the world. Yes, my dear woman, this is dangerous. Dangerous to the safety of the current structures that are stifling your life, keeping you from your joy, raping and pillaging precious beings and our earth. Your personal transformation, following the direction of your inner fire, will transform the things in its path. Transformation can be painful, but it is necessary. Fuel your desires, follow the hunger in your belly. Do not be afraid to fly forward and leave some things behind you in the tail winds. What is true will remain like dew drops on your wings. I'll end with a poem for you, one I have written during a time of learning to trust my fire. May it give you strength on your journey. If I knew I was powerful If I didn’t believe in your lies about my powerlessness I would shout from the rooftops And never stop I would scream the truth into the eyes of the complacent And then march out of the room with no explanation I would say everything, all of the things, without hesitation And then I would say nothing, nothing at all, as I drank in the world I wouldn’t, not for a minute, wait for anyone Or anything To give me permission I would laugh at your fear And beat down the doors of my own heart And live, alive, never releasing my hold on what’s real If I knew I was free If I didn’t believe in your chains I would take each step as if riding on the hands of the universe I would be alone, and in that aloneness, connected I would know the sound of my own voice And I would listen like my life depended on it If I knew I was free, if I knew I was powerful. I am caught here, in between. Between the old and the new, between the lies and the truth I have touched my power, I have touched my freedom I see the threshold, I feel the chains How to come out of the fog for good One final hurrah for the lies! And draw myself up from the ground, wings spread Don’t wait for my return.  Hellloooo world. What a time to be alive. These days we are experiencing a lot. Sometimes we are fired up with excitement and empowerment, and other times we are experiencing a lot of fear, rage, and pain. For those big feelers out there, this is a lot to work with. And yet, we want to stay committed to waking up and taking action. Being an empath myself, I’ve been thinking about some tools we can use in facing this moment in time. So I am sharing some things I’m working with in hopes that you can find some of the support you need.
1. Feel your feelings. All of them As an empath, you are meant to feel. Your feeling heart is put on the earth to help other humans remember their own tender, feeling heart. Don’t stop feeling. (You probably couldn’t anyway, though you have probably tried. But in trying, you will actually be killing off parts of yourself, leaving you feeling like the walking dead). Rage, pain, confusion, and fear are wise responses to what we have experienced and what we see around us. It’s about processing those emotions as energy to fuel our positive action for ourselves in our own lives, and for the world. And it’s also about giving ourselves lots of space to process the energies, which I believe has a powerful, yet subtle impact in and of itself. What would happen if we all allowed the pain of the world enter our hearts? So many things would change. I think when we do it, it enters the collective unconscious more strongly and influences others to do it too. 2. How to feel all the feelings Don’t THINK about your feelings. Feelings are meant to be felt, not thought. So stay tuned into your body. When you feel something deeply, try to connect with the place in your body where you feel it the most. Stay connected to that part of your body (or your whole body if it’s generalized) and breath into it, breath around it, give it lots of space. Let any images, colors, or messages arise. Rather than deciding what the feeling is or means, try to sit with the feeling, lean into the feeling, until IT tells YOU. If it’s really intense, keep breathing, really deep breaths and relax around it. Notice yourself as separate from it, as working with it. It doesn’t matter that you know what it is or how to explain it. All that matters is that you welcome the feeling. The message, if there is one, will arise on its own if you give it space and sit with it long enough. You can do this anywhere. In the bathroom, in your office chair, in your friend’s living room as people are talking all around you. You can be in your own experience no matter where you are. This will create an intimacy with your emotions that can change your entire relationship with yourself. If you are afraid of what you’re feeling, that is your mind already deciding what the feeling is saying. That is you thinking about something that is meant to be felt. Sometimes feelings are scary because we are afraid they will tell us something we don’t want to hear (ie. You should leave your job or relationship or something else you’re afraid to change, or we think the feeling might PROVE that we are actually as unlovable and as unworthy as we fear we are). If you practice sitting with EVERY feeling in the way described above, you will eventually learn that your feelings are not scary at all. They are incredibly friendly and loving messages of guidance that you don’t want to miss. 3. Be intentional with your time Here’s how my days look right now (though not in this order). This block of time is for work, my job, where I am ON. I am focused, productive, inspiring, interactive, connecting with others and I’m in touch with my Type A self that just really needs to get this to-do list done. This next block of time is for being totally OFF, doing NOTHING, meaning silence, breathing, looking out the window, drinking tea, meditating. No screens, no interactions, total cocooning. This other block of time is for touching base with the world around me and making sure I’m checked in and staying woke. I’m listening to the news, I’m reading things, I’m putting events into my calendar for taking action, I’m raging and calling friends to vent. The next block of time is for my action for the betterment of the world. This is when I’m going to meetings and dialogues and protests and volunteering. And this last block of time is for my family and my friends and getting fueled with interactive self-care and love and positive relationship. I am SUPER intentional about this. I try not to let things bleed into each other. I create blocks of time that start and end. This means I don’t spend all my time all day thinking about the news, but that I do get woke every day at some point. And it means that I don’t spend all my time in quiet self-care mode, but it means that every day I do something for a good block of time to take care of myself. Your blocks will look different and you won’t squeeze all of them into every day. But if you’re intentional about when you’re OFF and when you’re ON, then you can make the best of those times and you can find ways to get what you need. 4. Protect yourself I’ve been feeling the need for some energetic protection these days. There are some very loud, very dark forces and we really need to be paying attention to that. We need to also keep them from poisoning our system. My favorite description of detachment is Robert Master’s quote, “close enough to experience it, but far enough to see it clearly.” So the staying woke part is being close enough to experience it, letting the anger and pain be felt and honored and call us into action, and boundaries and protection make up the part of being far enough away to see it clearly and notice it as something outside of ourselves. If I were to put an image to my energetic protection, it’s like there’s a wall made of stones all along my front body and guards stand out front choosing what energy comes in. I trust these guards and they let me know when it’s safe to let an energy in and when I should have them stand firm. Sometimes protection can be accomplished energetically, and sometimes it involves words and actions. You get to decide (or you can ask your guards what they think). I feel this amazing energy right now of women saying “hell no” to a lot of abuse and painful stuff. So you can tap into that fierce feminine “hell no” energy and sit with that (like in #1) and see what message it has for you. Perhaps you need to actually tell someone no, sometimes you even have to release someone from your life. If you have been trained to consider saying no as being unloving or not compassionate, this can be a very hard task (another blog entry for another time), so you may need some friends or a good therapist. Your energy and your time are your greatest resources. We need you in your fullness, all filled up and alive, all connected to yourself and ready to embrace your calling each day, so don’t let any loud and dark forces mess with your energy. Instead, use your protected energetic vortex of love to stand in their way. 5. And when you still find yourself drained… Because you will sometimes be drained! And that’s okay. It’s part of the journey of all empaths and it will just happen sometimes. Learn to recognize the drained feeling in your body and start to notice when it shows up. It might be around certain people or in certain circumstances. Then use practice #1 to explore what it is that might have you feeling drained in these situations. That will be useful information. It might be that the situation is actually great, but your self-doubt rises up and is killing your soul! We don’t know, so we sit with it until IT tells US. Also, this is why you have those self-care blocks of time in your intentional week schedule. Right in the moment of drain, until you can get to your self-care block of time, a few deep belly breaths can work wonders. Being in nature, even for a short time, going on a walk in the woods, can also work wonders. Rescue Remedy by Bach Flower Essences is a miracle worker, and even 5 minutes of yoga is like magic. 6. Here is one of my all-time favorite quotes to sign off "The goal is an awakened heart, one that feels everything there is to feel: joy and hope, enchantment and aliveness; and also longing, sadness, anger, and pain. We feel how wonderful it is to be alive, how funny, how tragic. We don't shut down when the feelings get troublesome; we stay awake even when it hurts. This is the path of the heart: to develop tenderness toward the self and each other by opening wider and wider to the wonders and the woes of the world." -Elizabeth Lesser, Broken Open Hello reader!
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