Healing Ourselves, Healing The World

I recently read the following quote:  “life is a series of events that we’re not quite ready for”. Life is difficult; sometimes just getting out of bed in the morning can be a challenge. Tune into the news anytime of the day or night, and it’s clear that our world is hurting. Because we are human, feeling pain, either emotional or physical, is uncomfortable. We’d rather be distracted, and we don’t have to look far for distractions: shopping, television, eating, working, sex, drinking alcohol, and …(fill in the blank for yourself). Nothing is wrong with any of these activities in and of themselves, in moderation, but when they become compulsions there is a problem. When they are activities done to numb our pain, they become pathologies.

My heart has been broken by my climate activism. What humans are doing in our thoughtlessness to our ecosystem, and to our children’s future, fills me with great sadness. Paradoxically, the path of climate activism has also made me much more appreciative of the incredible beauty I am surrounded by, of the gifts that my family and my friends give to me by being part of my life, and (as I wrote about yesterday) of the general mystery of life. Facing my fear and moving from being a climate change “avoider” to a climate activist has been a great blessing, despite the tears I have shed and my feelings of frustration, anger, and indeed horror, at the situation we have put ourselves, and our children, in.

To quote Kahlil Gibran may be a cliche, but never let it be said that I shy away from those. Here Gibran weighs in on joy and sorrow:

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, “Joy is greater than sorrow,” and others say, “Nay, sorrow is the greater.”
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits, alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Poet, writer, and activist Eve Ensler is a woman who has learned to look pain boldly in the face, and allow herself to be changed by it. Speaking at TED Women, Ms. Ensler’s talk is entitled “Suddenly, my body”.