What does it take for a heart to transform?
Image of a room in the underground city of Derinkuyu, Turkey. 2023.
What does it take for a heart to transform? I’ve been asking myself this question on a regular basis in 2025. This year felt particularly difficult for myself and so many around me. The LA fires, ICE raids, ever-present fascism, passing of loved ones, so many overwhelmed nervous systems, mine often mirroring the ones around me.
In the heaviest moments, I’ve found myself grasping for hope, clawing for settling within, dreaming for someone to come save us. It feels like I’ve burrowed myself in the darkest of caves. I’ve been here before. Self-perception skewed, shortness of breath, vision blurred.
As I look around this cave, perhaps there are others with me here. The architecture of the cave is striking to me. A hollow space created through erosion, formation, lava, human exploration, and more. This place exists in me and I’ve visited places like this out there. I traveled to Derinkuyu, an underground city in Cappadocia, Turkey, where entire modes of life were carved through the dirt with a small air chamber allowing for survival. I crouched down in a narrow passage to find another room for communal gathering or sleep. This entire civilization found home and protection in the space in between. The rock and dirt formations demarcated the boundaries, and life flourished in the middle.
Can I find home and protection in the cave within?
Can I find vitality amidst the perception of darkness?
These questions shake me awake. They bring my attention back to the present, to what is actually occurring, and I can find some space for clarity. When I have found some settling within, I know that life is actually ever abundant in this dark place. The moisture welcomes new growth. The dark ushers in the value of contrast. And I can hear the revelations coming through me. Inviting me to transformation, from my heart center, the metaphysical rhythm of constriction giving way to expansion.
Earlier this year, I went to a soil generative farm to get my hands in the dirt as a form of spiritual reflection. My two-year-old and I were planting broccoli shoots, knowing we wouldn’t be the ones to eat the harvest. I was cultivating the soil and reflecting on my own soul. The mirroring of the practice of tending to, blessings in the unknown, life coming from the darkness, and more, felt like an important harvest unto itself. The external world is a reflection of our inner world. There is a conversation occurring between those two that can be one of reciprocity, and it can also be that of spiritual malaise.
After I returned from the farm, I was deep in reflection. I got a call from a dear friend, Umar Hakim. We used to do community organizing together in Los Angeles. I knew it would be a catch-up call, and I just didn’t have the capacity. I told him I would call him back the next day. He texted back saying he was traveling and would be back the following Thursday. I told him I would call him then, and I forgot to put it on my calendar. The following Friday, we got news that Umar had passed away. In my shock, I kept repeating, “I was supposed to call him back. I was supposed to call him back.” He literally passed away the day we were supposed to connect.
The heaviness of this missed opportunity for connection stifled my breath. I spent time in prayer and reflection, talking to my somatic therapist, dear family, and friends. And I found settling in knowing that we had a brief sweet touchpoint as he exited this realm. It was a soft “I’m thinking of you,” and I found comfort in this knowing.
When I went to his funeral, I was struck by the diversity of people celebrating him. He believed hope was meant to be discovered everywhere, and honestly, he showed up like hope in so many places…whether at an elected official's office or with someone unhoused.
The body of people remembering him reflected his aliveness..
There is an Islamic tradition of throwing dirt into the grave. A reminder to yourself of where we come from and where we are all headed. I grabbed a fistful of dirt, felt the granules rub between my fingertips, the dampness cooling the inside of my palm, and I threw the soil into Umar’s grave.
A few days later, I found myself at the Chino women’s prison doing a coaching training. Given everything that was going on with me, I didn’t do much planning. I showed up and focused on my presence. We were with 30 folx who had been doing their own work through various enrichment trainings and part of a program called Insight Garden. This program supports people in developing a deeper connection with themselves and nature through taking care of a garden. The first day went by so smoothly, even though we had to cut a third of the curriculum, like we were on an alternative timeline. The womxn were marinated in the coaching world and were hungry for more. I was so inspired by their desire to soak in the information. Our coaching training centers on the idea that we are already whole and moving towards greater levels of wholeness. This concept is novel in a prison setting, where most programs focus on deficits. I did a coaching demo in front of the room with a participant who was working through misogyny, and by the end of it, she told me she felt agape love towards me, and I understood. I felt myself feeling unconditional love towards these womxn, too.
By the end of the day, the program director of Insight Garden, Michelle, my co-director Damon, and Jamala, our third trainer, were tired but rejuvenated. Michelle told us that the average sentence was 28 years, and most womxn were mothers separated from their kids. My face got hot, and my mouth got dry. I was overwhelmed at the cruelty and challenged by my concepts of forgiveness.
I instantly put my hands in the dirt without much thought.
I needed to touch this soil.
Michelle took us to the gardens where the womxn share planter beds. I saw the basil flourishing and the beginnings of cucumber shoots. I instantly put my hands in the dirt without much thought. I needed to touch this soil. This sacred soil was cultivating souls. I felt renewed to complete the training. We taught about asking open-ended questions and three levels of listening, and we have already heard back that the yard would meaningfully benefit from these types of skills, strengthening relationships.
My heart is changed because of these experiences. And I realized that what was required of me to be transformed was my presence and attunement to my beingness. At the farm, I made sure I was hydrated. At Umar’s funeral, I made sure I ate before I went. At the prison, I made sure I got enough sleep and had plenty of snacks. These seemingly mundane acts were actually forms of prayer to support my presence and allow transformation to thrive in and around me.
I write this on a good day in 2025. Zohran Mamdani has been elected as the youngest mayor of New York City. In his acceptance speech, I was expecting him to play Bruce Springsteen and talk of unity. But he played Dhoom and spoke about being unapologetically Muslim, immigrant, and a Democratic Socialist. I was anticipating his concessions and was pleasantly surprised. In the city of 9/11, a brown Muslim man is bringing joy and hope to this entire country. The irony was something I wasn’t expecting in my lifetime.
So I ask myself again, what does it take for a heart to transform? In this season, I’m settling into paying attention to my attention, giving myself the essentials of what I need as acts of prayer to cultivate my highest self. We tend to the soil. We can’t control the weather, the contents of the seeds, the growth trajectory, and more. We can really only choose to nourish the components that make up the larger whole and trust that unknown unfurling will be magical. That the process of surrender will be part of our becoming. That focusing on joy and hope will lead to peace. And to stick our hands in the dirt as an act of devotion to all that came before and will come to be.
