This is a longer post than usual. I'm copying below a reflection I find inspiring. Thanks to Bev for sending it from the Contemplative Network Aotearoa.
We Were Made for These Times
by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
American
poet, post-trauma specialist and Jungian psychoanalyst, author of Women Who
Run With the Wolves.
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 almost daily
astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what
matters most to civilized, visionary people.
You
are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while
endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor,
the unguarded, the helpless, 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 that 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 waters
than there are right now across the world. And 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 boats of righteous souls on the waters
with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this 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 storms,
to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.
In
any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward 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. That is spending the wind without raising
the sails.
We
are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so
will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know
them when they appear. Didn't you say you were a believer? Didn't you say you
pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn't you ask for grace? Don't you remember
that to be in grace means to submit to the 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 soul, 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 toward an enduring good.
What
is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to,
adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take everyone on Earth to
bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give
up during the first, second, or hundredth 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. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark
times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal
fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in
shadowy times like these - to be fierce and to show mercy toward others; both
are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity.
Struggling
souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If
you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can
do.
There
will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt 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 despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve,
and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not
ours. They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here.
In
that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall:
When a great ship is in harbour and moored,
it is safe, there can be no
doubt.
But that is not what great ships are built for.
