The heart that
breaks open can
contain the
whole universe.
― Joanna Macy (1929-2025)
And begin.
You’ll do better with those seeds if you break up the soil first, she said. Poke them down in a bit.
But how will they see the sun? he asked.
Don’t worry, she replied. The sun will find them.
But how will the soil protect them if it’s broken up? he pressed.
Nothing grows without something having been broken open, she replied.
The author and activist Parker Palmer writes of the supple heart, the heart that easily breaks because it is open to repair. The brittle heart when challenged shatters into a thousand shards, but the supple heart opens and flexes and envelops. And in learning to contain the larger life we live as we age, our hearts grow.
We open our hearts to harm and hurt when we dare to love. But we must. As Palmer writes, “Only the supple heart can hold suffering in a way that opens to new life.” When something hurts, take some comfort that your supple heart has chosen to feel rather than take you down as it explodes into uselessness.
A closed heart, the brittle heart, creates its own shrinking world. An open heart, the supple heart, could grow to contain the entire universe before its days are through.