”Honey in the Heart: The Rasa of Enjoyment, Delight and Celebration on the Path” (Nachama Greenwald)

The phrase “honey in the heart” is taken from a book by Martin Prechtel. The word “rasa” means taste or essence in Sanskrit. The heart is an alchemical vessel, capable of transmitting, radiating, and metabolizing. The elixir distilled from this process is like honey. When we meet reality as-it-is with an open and undefended heart, we celebrate all aspects of our lives. We become one with all of life in the moment, and our hearts break from sorrow and from joy. Creation is an outpouring of divine love. In celebrating and finding delight in our lives, we align with the heart of creation. The fullness of joy is our birthright. Maybe we do not open to joy, but joy opens us. Joy arises when we surrender to the full spectrum of life, when we drop our resistance and are willing to feel everything without trying to fix, escape, or transcend life as-it-is to become some perfect version of ourselves. Celebration is when we meet reality with full presence. We can cultivate presence and pause, slow down, and notice when we experience this through grace. We get bigger so we can hold the inconceivable by stretching beyond habitual reference points and perceived limitations. We come home through the medium of the natural world. Ways that people experience coming home are shared. Grieving is medicine for our attachments. When grieving is complete, what is left is love not colored by attachment. The path is an investment in loss—hopefully of our illusions. Reality is transmissive, and the transmissions are about love and are always available to us. We die a little in order to love more. The heart will open at death to the degree it has opened in life. Nachama is a physical therapist, editor, and musician who for seventeen years was a member of the Shri blues band which performed Western Baul music.