Brusing Matters

The Bruised Heart
It's been a while since I've written a blog piece or sent out a newsletter. In the between space of then and now, the world has certainly changed for all of us. The new word in our vocabulary is Covid. It is a Covid World. And how we manage our lives according to new rules is not only confounding and confusing, but just down right people - messy!

It began for me when a friend in China began posting her experience about a new sickness arising in her beloved country. As I read each entry, my anxiety increased to the pace of her stunning posts where I sensed the sounds of sirens on the horizon. I began wonderings such as what if it comes here? What will we do? How will we live? Will my children survive this deadly virus? I come from a long line of women alarmists! It just comes naturally for me. Yet too, I think I had plenty of excellent company as the world began to wonder out loud the same familiar thoughts. The posts my colleague in China and another from Italy helped prepare me to take this virus seriously no matter the fact leadership in my own country was nonexistent. I began to choose with discernment those to whom I'd listen for the best science based facts regarding this unyielding, pervasive, and deadly virus, Covid-19. 
My experience with the onset of Covid was and continues to be increased separation and polarization politically and relationally. And Oh! By the way, add the more familiar words, Racism and Privilege and we enter a virtual show down where rivers converge into a Class VI mayhem. Maybe these are the disturbing waters we've needed to boldly reignite a relentless, fierce, and daunting fire into a roaring wildfire. With all of this, is it any wonder the hearts of many are feeling bruised?

On a personal note, a dear friend recently when asked how she was doing these days, said to me, "I'm tending to a bruised heart."
I looked at her through our zoomed in cameras as intently as if I were looking into her soul. "Me too," I said, "me too." In an instant, there was no separation!  

In my work life, which has suffered due to Covid, I inhabit a passionate aliveness on the face to face, in room contact with the human energies of those who've come to learn, practice, interact, and grow in the awarenesses Nonviolent Communication stirs. I wait to hear their words spoken by the language of the heart where many times there are no audible words. I sense their body language giving me more information about their new insights on the bruisings of life and their vulnerability while sharing inner woundings, woundings we all carry, sometimes buried deep, yet palbably visible through silence. I miss these moments. I cherish the memories of them in the hundreds of rooms in which I've sat as a facilitator and/or participant. My bruised heart wants to sing again in a room with other voices; my bruised heart wants to hug real skin, look into the eyes of another and see the filling of tears; to feel the buoy of belly laughter while holding one another up; my bruised heart comes near to losing hope I'll have these treasures again. And then, on a zoom call, a dear soul says, tenderly with soft conviction, "I'm tending a bruised heart," and suddenly, I know her; I know me; and I know as Maya Angelou eloquently wrote, why the caged bird sings.

Caged Bird

BY MAYA ANGELOU
A free bird leaps

on the back of the wind   

and floats downstream   

till the current ends

and dips his wing

in the orange sun rays

and dares to claim the sky.


But a bird that stalks

down his narrow cage

can seldom see through

his bars of rage

his wings are clipped and   

his feet are tied

so he opens his throat to sing.


The caged bird sings   

with a fearful trill   

of things unknown   

but longed for still   

and his tune is heard   

on the distant hill   

for the caged bird   

sings of freedom.


The free bird thinks of another breeze

and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees

and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn

and he names the sky his own


But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams   

his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream   

his wings are clipped and his feet are tied   

so he opens his throat to sing.


The caged bird sings   

with a fearful trill   

of things unknown   

but longed for still   

and his tune is heard   

on the distant hill   

for the caged bird   

sings of freedom.