Forget your perfect offering

I was going to write a post today, but instead I offer you a link to a beautiful post by the lovely Michelle Myhre, about the hindu goddess Akhilandeshvara (Ah-KEEL-An-Desh-Vara), also known as "She Who Is Never Not Broken".

As I said in my comment on Michelle's post, this is a beautiful metaphor and a reminder that to be alive is to be able to feel, and to be able to feel is the greatest gift of the human heart.

Every time my heart breaks (which is pretty much every other day - especially living in a place like East Timor where I am constantly reminded of how hard life is for most of the people in this world) I also feel gratitude that I am able to feel love and compassion. In Western society so many of our emotions are sanitised - we don't have a cultural, familial or personal space to deal with pain, grief, compassion, or sorrow, and we are constantly told to shut  up, shut it out or "get over" it.

This speaks to me of embracing the heart's ability to suffer, because it is that ability which also allows us to love.  In my line of work (development & humanitarian aid), but also in every day life, that vulnerability is critical, because it is what keeps us human in the face of the injustice of the world.

I have also borrowed the photo from Michelle's post - isn't it incredible?  It reminds me of that famous Leonard Cohen line: "forget your perfect offering / there is a crack in everything / that's how the light gets in".