The Columbia City Yoga on-line Moving into Meditation class met this morning. We reflected on the nature of stories that lead to change. We explored how mindfulness can help us to recognize the heart-stories that we are shaped by and those that we bring to life through our compassionate choices.
We heard the story of Bolivian human rights defender, Amparo Carvajal. This week Amparo was honored with the U.S. State Department’s annual Human Rights Defenders Award. At 85 years old, she is still creating the stories that the world needs to hear. You can learn more about her and the other honorees by viewing the Human Rights Award Ceremony. It is a joy to learn about the dedicated work that happens throughout the world. (I wanted to bring this forward as it wasn’t mentioned in the New York Times.)
We heard journalist and writer Rebecca Solnit’s comments about the kind of stories that lead to change. Her comments were drawn from What If We’re Telling the Wrong Stories About the Climate Crisis.
We heard activist and theologian, Dr. Vincent Harding’s encouragement to create the “just country” we want to live in. You can read more at Dr. Vincent Harding’s Call to Make America America.
We heard David Whyte’s poem, In the Beginning. You can hear more of David’s mindful insights in his interview with On Being’s Krista Tippett, Seeking Language Large Enough.
Guided Reflection
Welcome. Last week we reflected on what it means to have “wise hope.” We considered our willingness to bring caring actions to the world despite the uncertainty of success. In closing our on-line sharing time, I noticed that each of you were like lights about to go out into the world. I heard a number of inspiring stories about the people who bring their light into the world this week.
Last Monday was Human Rights Day. It’s celebrated internationally in honor of the day in1948, when the United Nations General Assembly announced the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). On Tuesday, the State Department celebrated the 2024 recipients of the Secretary of State’s Human Rights Defenders Award.
The honorees came from Azerbaijan, Bolivia, Myanmar, Colombia, Eswatini, Ghana, Kuwait, and the Kyrgyz Republic. They demonstrated great courage in defending human rights while they were also being threatened. Each of them had family, friends and ordinary citizens who stood with them who also risked speaking truth to power.
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told the story of Bolivian activist Amparo Carvajal. He knelt beside her wheel chair as he handed her the award. Amparo has devoted her life to promoting human rights in Bolivia. She has taken on the individual cases of people tortured and disappeared and defended the rights of indigenous communities. Recently a group aligned with the government violently occupied her organization’s office. Amparo, who is 85 years old, staged an around-the-clock-protest outside the building. She held her ground for 52 days, sleeping outside in freezing temperatures. After the occupiers eventually left her organization she said, “I find myself strengthened, because I never sold myself out.”
Social activist Rebecca Solnit writes about “the stories that describe how change works: . . . ordinary people, massed together, can be more powerful than anything else.” Story makers and the storytellers have the ability to speak to “the things we most yearn for: broader connection, community, meaning, purpose, hope, and awe.”
Dr. Vincent Harding was a beloved historian, theologian, social justice activist, and visionary who never lost sight of the “beloved community.” On his 81st birthday he spoke at a Children’s Defense Fund’s conference. He urged listeners to commit to healing America. I think his message is worthy of repeating today:
We are citizens of a country that we still have to create—a just country, a compassionate country, a forgiving country, a multiracial, multi-religious country, a joyful country that cares about its children and about its elders, that cares about itself and about the world, that cares about what the earth needs as well as what individual people need. I am, you are, a citizen of a country that does not yet exist and that badly needs to exist.
Our practice can help us to be story makers and story tellers. Together we can create the stories of a just and caring country. Right now we form a circle of hearts; hearts that listen and hearts that witness. In this heart space we can come home to ourselves and feel what we feel. We can listen deeply to ourselves so that we might listen deeply to each other. We support each other in being – the kind of being that offers the time in which our deeper stories can emerge. Our deeper stories contain seeds of healing. Sometimes they illuminate the next steps on our life’s journey.
Let’s begin by settling our bodies on Earth’s body. Be fully present to your inner experience. The invitation is to explore awareness as a way of nourishing your heart and mind. Sense yourself stepping out of the stream of habit. Experience simply being, human being. Nourish yourself with moments of restful presence. Give yourself these moments. Give yourself this attention.
Let your awareness rest in your body. Notice where your attention is drawn. Contact the felt sense of this area; no need to search for anything; just allow yourself to be. Attention may wander. Witness the coming back. Perhaps to a place that yearns for your attention; that truly needs healing. You may find a story surfacing; a story told with feeling, imagery, memory, sensation.
If you like, you can take a breath or two and give yourself time to feel. Let your heart speak. Can you recognize what might be shaping your heart and mind? What matters most to you right now? Need? Belonging? Safety? Freedom? Connection? Meaning? Empathy? Compassion?
This may be a time to slow down, to do less, to not have to know. This is a time to be careful with ourselves. If the heart is silent, spend this time with sensitivity and tenderness. You don’t have to know. Allow this time to what may be getting ready to emerge. If something wants to be born you can nurture it with the qualities of attention, aspiration and energy.
We practice to cultivate the courage to take compassionate action. Right now we can reflect on how we hear and speak “heart-talk.” Sometimes we need a leap of imagination to act bravely. Other times we need to pause – to step out of the stream of doing – to breathe, to feel and feel with another. Whether in stillness or in motion we are always part of a story.
Our stories are embodied: we live life in them.
We embody our stories: we give life to them.
Our stories always arise in the web of inter-being; a web that is woven through the body; a web that is entangled with other bodies. This is true at the beginning and true at the end of our journeys. Poet David Whyte offers this heart-talk:
In the Beginning
Sometimes simplicity rises
like a blossom of fire
from the white silk of your own skin.
You were there in the beginning
you heard the story, you heard the merciless
and tender words telling you where you had to go.
Exile is never easy and the journey
itself leaves a bitter taste. But then,
when you heard that voice, you had to go.
You couldn’t sit by the fire, you couldn’t live
so close to the live flame of that compassion
you had to go out in the world and make it your own
so you could come back with
that flame in your voice, saying listen…
this warmth, this unbearable light, this fearful love…
It is all here, it is all here.