The joy of a wedding opens the heart to grief.
The grief of a funeral opens the heart to love.
In this way we are beaten and forged, our hearts made pure and free.
When we loose someone close to us we grieve. We can choose to let the tears flow, feel the emotions flow; choose to open our hearts rather than close them. Then we experience again the love that we had for the one we have lost, and know that we can still be in relationship spiritually, if not physically.
Sometimes we do this in real time. Sometimes it is at a later time. Making space in ourselves to experience grief we clear space to experience love. Like the Grinch at that mythical Christmas, our heart grows larger.
I was at a wedding recently that generated a powerful field of love and community, opening the heart and soul, like a bird spreading its wings wide in the joy of flight. It was a transformative experience. In the next few days I had levels of old grief come up. The energy of love had opened my heart wider and there was more space for the love that is grief to come forth and heal me as well.
Like Rumi I welcomed this unexpected guest, knowing that the cycle moves back and forth, that experiencing this grief, even though I wasn’t even sure what it was about, would in turn open my heart for love even further.
The more we dare to feel, the clearer we become and the more we can feel those things we seek. When we allow ourselves to expand at either end of the spectrum, we expand the whole spectrum, and in time we are freer and freer to choose which end we call home.
Grief is not the enemy of love, but a brother with a different name. If we welcome both as aspects of our ability to live and feel deeply we enlarge our hearts spiritually and there is more space for Spirit to enter in, more space to be alive and present, more space to give and to receive, more space for the energies that are joy and love.
As your heart opens you can “feel” into life more strongly, in yourself, in nature, in others. I invite you to practice this; just intend to open your heart, let your awareness drop into your chest and invite the experience what is already there, gently give it space to be. Or open outward to the trees, the flowers, all of nature is waiting to heal you. We are shifting how we experience this world, and it can help us if we create space to notice our relationship to it.
May you find the joy you seek, remembering that all roads lead to life and love when we walk them with open hearts.
(© 7/2009)
