Today is the last day of April — and thus the last day of this daily heart-centered practice of being present.
It is also the day that some states around the United States are beginning to open up.
There is a lot of controversy here in the United States about this. Is it too soon? Is it safe? Have we been closed for too long already? What took so long?
With this kind of controversy comes fear. Things feel very stirred up.
Polls show that the vast majority of the US population don’t feel confident about the decisions being made about re-opening. So how do we face this next phase of our communal lives — as a nation and a world?
And why, given this, have I chosen BE FREE as today’s heart-centered practice.
In one of my favorite books by David Whyte, the poet philosopher writes:
Freedom is perhaps the ultimate spiritual longing of an individual human being, but freedom is only really appreciated when it falls within the parameters of a larger sense of belonging. In freedom is the wish to belong to structure in our own particular way.
-- David Whyte
from "Crossing the Unknown Sea: Work As a Pilgrimage of Identity"
If we can’t learn this from the pandemic, then we will have missed the point:
NO ONE IS FREE UNLESS EVERYONE IS FREE.
Period. The end.
And what this crisis is teaching us is that we each need to practice this “larger sense of belonging—live this, believe this, and embody this—in everything we do.
So when I say that today’s heart-centered practice is BE: Free, this is what I mean.
As you move through your day, check in with everything you do. What you are eating? Who are you interacting with? Who are your neighbors? What are you working on?
And then ask yourself: Do the choices I make allow me to BE Free? Do the choices I make allow others to BE Free? Are there any choices I make that hinder someone else’s freedom? Where in my life don’t I feel free? How would I like that to change? How would those changes affect others?
And then begin to think of yourself as a part of a larger whole — and begin to envision and embody a world that expresses the communal and individual FREEDOM of a larger sense of belonging.
Does this sound ridiculous? Do you think to yourself — What can I, one person, do?
EVERYTHING STARTS WITH US. Every choice we make affects another person. In order for us to feel truly free, everyone must feel truly free. In order for everyone to feel truly free, each of us must feel truly free.
And it begins right here and right now. .. Are you ready?
Then start figuring what freedom means to you and to our world — and BE that freedom.
Listen to the video that accompanies today’s blog with an added poem: