If this is your first time at the website please read the post Ooh La La for important information, and also enjoy the following inspirational offering . . . by one of the finest Poetess’s and Storyteller’s of all time. A true modern WisdomKeeper from not simply the old school, but the ancient one’s. – You were made for this – My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world now. Ours is a time of daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to caring, visionary, civilized people. You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris, the bald faced audacity that some are engaged inwhile endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, this mother earth, is breathtaking. Yet I urge you, ask you, gentle you . . . to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is, we were made for these times. Yes. For years we have been learning, practicing, been in training for, and just waiting to meet, on this exact plain of engagement . . . I grew up on the great lakes, and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able vessels in the water than there are right now, across the world. They are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind. Look out over the prow; there are millions of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in the stormy roil, I assure you, that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder, come from a greater forest. That long grained lumber is known to withstand even the fiercest storms. To hold together. To hold its own, and to advance, regardless. In any dark time there is a tendency to veer towards fainting, over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency too, to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there either. That is spending the wind, without raising the sails. We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we will also meet great souls who will hail us, love us, guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn’t you say you were a believer? Didn’t you say you are pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn’t you ask for grace? Please remember . . .that to be in grace means to follow a voice greater. Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts, or by whom,will cause the critical mass to tip towards an enduring good and transformative shift. What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts great and small, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on earth to bring justice and peace, but small determined groups and individuals who will not give upduring the first, second, or hundreth gale. One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world, is to stand up and show your soul. A soul on deck, shines like gold in dark times. The light of such a soul throws sparks, sends up flames, builds signal fires, causes the proper matters to catch fire. You, as much as anyone else, are this soul. And to display the lantern of the soul in shadowy times like these, to be fierce when necessary and yet show mercy toward others, both are acts of immense bravery and of greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are brightly lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the turbulence,this is one of the strongest things you can do. There will often be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt this despair many times in my life. But I do not keep a chair for it. I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate. The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no lasting despair when you remember why you came to earth, what you are here for, who you serve, and why. The good words we say and the good deeds we do, are not ours. They are the words and deeds of the love and life that brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you may write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and tied to the pier, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not, what great ships are built for. – Clarissa Pinkola Estes –
Asheville Poetry 