When our heart grows heavy

This poem was co-created during the first day of our annual Learning Festival in a session titled “Holding the pain of our world: Heartful processing through poetry”. During this session we wove together poetry to help us be with the pain of the world, practicing holding each other as we face reality and hear the truths as they are sung into song by so many poets. 

‍

When our hearts grow heavy from carrying loss, we feel called to recognize abundance.

‍

When our hearts grow heavy from carrying a vision, we feel called to build.

‍

When our hearts grow heavy from carrying the world we have been told we must inherit, we feel called to recreate and reimagine, together, side by side.

‍

When our hearts grow heavy from carrying grief, we feel called exist in community.

‍

We feel called to be with our mother, our shared mother, earth.

‍

And embrace the feelings of gratitude that we had kept folded.

‍

When our hearts grow heavy from carrying the silent screams of our ancestors struggles, we feel called to birth the mother earth of their deepest longing.

‍

Called to make our differences our power to reimagine greatness together as one.

‍

We feel called to let our hearts rest, let them lie upon the ground.

‍

When our hearts grow heavy carrying judgement, we feel called to accept ourselves as we are.

‍

When our hearts grow heavy from feeling mother's pain, we feel called to create together so all can live.

‍

We feel called to (honestly) sometimes run away!

‍

When our hearts grow heavy from carrying the bodies of our deceased kin, we feel called to let them compost and be reborn.

‍

When our hearts grow heavy from carrying this unfathomable pain, we feel called to heal.

‍

Breath, let go, and feel the force of the way we choose.

‍

We feel called to remember, through the stories of our ancestors, the whispers of the land, to listen.

‍

When our hearts grow heavy from carrying our world, we feel called to breakout and let loose.

‍

When our hearts grow heavy from carrying the consequences of the actions of those above we feel called to imagine a new horizon.

‍

To reunite from all the disconnection we've had with the world and nature.

‍

When our hearts grow heavy from carrying what we “must” do, we feel called to release it all and follow our heart’s desire.

‍

When our hearts grow heavy from carrying the weight of the images of unbearable violence, rubbles for miles, dead bodies who had a name, a story, loved ones who remain and will never be the same. we feel called to stop the war machines and turn to have the strength to stand for truth, justice, and love.

‍

When our hearts grow heavy, let it awaken our inner zeal, passion and commitment.

‍

When our hearts grow heavy from carrying the urgency and largeness of all the troubles, we feel called to reach out our small hands and join them together and lift them to what is our birthright - joy.