—Life is the most common human experience.—

Life can bring us to the edge of who we think we are: our sense of self, our capacity to love, our personal ambition and vision and what it all means to us. And from this view from the edge, we will find that we are far greater. From this place at the edge, we enter the unknown personal frontier of the broken-open heart. This experience of life holds a great gift, found only by those with courage to enter their own heart with eyes wide open.

The whole design of life is to bring us to a place of awareness.

Life’s experiences can open us to find what is truly possible. We can come to see that the end of something – a job, a relationship, even a life – is always a doorway, opening into expanded awareness and love. We find what we have been wanting for a very long time. We experience our own becoming.

Courage, willingness and love are the universal qualities of the brilliant human heart that bring us to compassion. We go within. We develop our capacity to be with ourselves. We deepen into our own experience of life. Everything is there for us, nothing missing – and this discovery is not just a feel-good affirmation. It is a deep experience of who we really are, arising from the love, courage, and willingness to simply be with all of life.

Compassion begins here. Interestingly, this personal process is most profoundly done in community. We find that compassion is connective, relational. As we deepen into our own experience of life, we are also moved outward to the world we inhabit – we broaden our presence in the fabric of the universe. George Bernard Shaw called such a life a “splendid torch:” moved in compassion we make the significant difference we are here to make.

The purpose of The Compassionate Arts Project is to support your discovery of the brilliance of your own heart, living the full spectrum of life, and bringing your own unique light –your “splendid torch” - to the planet.