The Heart of The World

Deep life comes from Heart.

At the center of every living thing is a beating heart, and that heart is rooted in the web of life, relating itself to creation.

Everything on earth is a variation on this theme. We are all related. Native Americans understood this and expressed it in the statement “All our relations.”

We civilized folks focus on our differences, as if those differences define us, as if that means we have no reason to care for other beings or the earth. As if we don’t need to bother ourselves with the suffering of others. “Animals don’t feel pain,” some government spokesman pronounced, as he introduced another cruel policy.

Well, in that case, we’re free to destroy the earth and all the inhabitants we can’t monetize, aren’t we? How convenient for us.

I don’t believe it. I believe it behooves us to care for others and the earth, and for that we need Heart with a capital h. Without Heart, can we be said to have a soul?

Getting and spending is not the reason we live, in my opinion. I think there is a larger project, having to do with becoming conscious of the role of love in the world and how we’re implicated in that project.

Opening the eye of the heart is supposed to be the mission of religion, but it devolves easily into tribalism…