Read Vera's chapter "Blessings of Brokenness" in the new anthology from Science and Nonduality Conference:

Vera de Chalambert, MTS is a public theologian, spiritual storyteller and Harvard-educated scholar of comparative religion working at the meeting place of healing, mindfulness and social change. She speaks and writes about spiritual culture, the intersection of mysticism and social justice, the transformational power of holy darkness, and the Divine Feminine. Having spent many years studying wisdom and healing lineages, Vera brings forth a unique blend of healing presence and spiritual insight. She has been invited to speak internationally at colleges, gatherings and conferences such as SAND Science and Nonduality Conference in the US and Europe, Sister Giant in Washington DC and the Dawn of Inter-Spirituality in Costa Rica. Vera's writing has been read around the world and translated into four languages. Her work is informed by inter-spiritual insights from the world’s great wisdom traditions and is based on the nondual approach. Vera is deeply influenced by Buddhist and Kabbalistic lineages. She holds a Master’s degree from Harvard Divinity School.

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Vera's work re-frames crisis as precious opportunity for spiritual growth, failure as invitation to surrender into the Mystery, brokenness as blessing.  And much like personal crisis, the poly-crisis unfolding on this planet is a catalyst for powerful transformation for individuals, systems of power, and the culture at large. This is no cheap calamity, this is radical initiation. Do not rush in to fix it. Let your brokenness shine. Take you all the way through to the heart of all matters. The Kotzker Rebbe would remind his students, "Nothing is as whole as a broken heart." Our wounds are holy passages. Our darkest, most painful challenges, ways towards true wholeness. 

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"It is always from our deepest wound,

from the thing that breaks our heart the most,

that our yearning, our calling,

our purpose in life emerges."

 ~Vera de Chalambert

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In a way personal growth is simply about becoming more fully ourselves. Ultimately, rather than becoming something more than we are, we become more ordinary, more vulnerable, more tenderhearted. Thats all. Tender beings who can meet all of life with compassion and heart. We learn to embrace our pain, our brokenness, our imperfection and that of the world. We let it reveal our radical entanglement with everything. From this place of humility and solidarity we often begin to hear our deepest calling. 

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This being human is not for the faint of heart. We suffer, we feel disconnected, we forget to be kind. Our lives are sometimes a holy mess. The most precious flavor of holy. But no matter our circumstances, wholeness is present within us exactly as we are right now. As we surrender to its intelligence it reorganizes our lives into instruments of its own design. It invites us to offer everything to this transformation and to dedicate this transformation to all. We can not heal or awaken alone. We need each other. This planet is on the brink of unprecedented change and it will need all of us.  We rise for each other and heal together. We are not free until we are all free.

 

The dark night of the soul is a powerful time of deep spiritual maturation, initiation and transfiguration. If you are a guest of the holy dark, if you find yourself in the spiritual desert, if you have stepped into the holy fire of your soul and need spiritual support. Or if you just have questions about the spiritual life. Welcome. You are in the Mother-land now. Your path is trustworthy. Your holy ordeal, no mistake. You are not dying, you are crowning. The poet Rumi recommends,"Try something different. Surrender."