I woke up with quite a heavy heart this morning, actually feeling heavy, dense, sluggish...My wings down, no wind under them...With a feeling of "I should be doing something! and at the same time "What's the point?!" in my consciousness yet I couldn't put my finger on what was going on. Turning on my computer, reading my e-mails it all became clear...Here the newsflashes I encountered within five minutes: a Syrian 3 year old boy, shot, his last words before he dies: "I will tell God about all of these!" - a petition to sign to end child brides, 8 year old girls sold to marriage by their families - a call to help a 4 week old bear cub by Four Paws - leaks of corruption, deception....ignorance, lack of integrity, violence....I broke out in tears! Have I woken up in hell this morning? Everything is going from bad to worse with no sign of any change for better! What does it matter what I choose, what I BE? My Spirit's insistent call of late came to mind: "Don't make the appearances of the dying world real" Make your inner world real!" " I don't want to!" I screamed in tears, I don't care, don't you see this all? How come that so much suffering doesn't matter? How come regardless of so many Beings holding Light on the planet there is SO MUCH darkness?! I don't want to! I cannot do this! I am failing! We are all failing! It is too much to handle for us! I don't know what to do! I am out on a limb here! I want to go home!"
I was aware that I was fully, completely entangled in what I have been making real, but I didn't care! It was all too much. The pain, the sadness, the FRUSTRATION were too overwhelming to ask Spirit for a shift! And what reality shift anyway? None of these were shifting in any way! So I cried and cried in my desperation, overwhelm, hopelessness and in my feeling of being completely lost, of not wanting to go on anymore. I was not only doubting that I couldn't change a thing but I was seeing the proof that none of us could!
Right then a beloved friend of mine sent me an e-mail, forwarding me a text written by Clarissa Pinkola-Estes, and a quote of Osho. Talk about synchronicity! I am including both below, they say it all...After having read it amid tears, with all kinds of emotional outbursts....I became aware of the fact that how much I took the outside world into my being and started to embody it...overnight! How much I became all of the suffering, all of the pain, overwhelm, powerlessness of the whole universe....A song started to play in my head..
Spirit often communicates with me through songs playing in my head, putting them in loop, especially if I am too busy or overly preoccupied to listen to Spirit. I started to sing along....breaking into more tears...This time of relief. Great Spirit is always in me and around me, regardless the appearance! My heart is still very raw and tender. The words of Clarissa Pinkola-Estes are like a balm for my soul today. I hope it will sooth your being too when you are troubled.
As Clarissa says Great Ships are not made to stay in safe harbors. I Know the Truth of that! I know we were made for these times, I know we came here to BE the Light in darkness and not to succumb to it. I just need to rest a moment and gather the pieces of my heart together, collect the bones and sing to them...to awaken them...
I HEAR the call in my bones! Being "in the safe harbor" is not doing it anymore! Yes, like Osho is saying, Satyuga IS possible, and it will come! Yet what we need are leaders, True Leaders. Leaders not followed by people, but Leaders who follow their Higher Heart, the Divine Intelligence, their Spirit's vision, that are free to BE ALL THAT THEY CAN BE OPENLY, FEARLESSLY and POWERFULLY! The time of hiding is over, it must be over! We are called more than ever to step into our full Essence and Presence openly, in a public way. No more withholding of what we Truly are! We have been in hiding for a long time now, tired and afraid of being swallowed by this old dying world as it had happened to so many of us so many, many times! Being Light Workers, Light Beings privately in our homes is not doing it any more. As Osho is saying, humanity is in need of us, as it has never been in need before! We are being called urgently to bypass all our fears, resistances and step into and stand in our Divine Essence and Presence firmly. These are the times we are truly made of...So after throwing our temper tantrums and putting together all the pieces of our broken hearts it is time for us to ARISE as US!
from my tender Heart to yours...
Do Not Lose Heart, We Were Made for These Times
Mis estimados,
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 right now. It is true, one has to have strong cojones and ovarios to withstand much of what passes for "good" in our culture today. Abject disregard of what the soul finds most precious and irreplaceable and the corruption of principled ideals have become, in some large societal arenas, "the new normal," the grotesquerie of the week.
It is hard to say which one of the current egregious matters has rocked people's worlds and beliefs more. Ours is a time of almost daily jaw-dropping 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 - 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 cannot tell you often enough that we are definitely the leaders we have been waiting for, and that we have been raised, since childhood, for this time precisely.
...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 crafts 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.
I would like to take your hands for a moment and assure you that you are built well for these times. Despite your stints of doubt, your frustrations in arighting all that needs change right now, or even feeling you have lost the map entirely, you are not without resource, you are not alone.
Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. In your deepest bones, you have always known this is so.
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 forest greater. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.
... We have been in training for a dark time such as this, since the day we assented to come to Earth. For many decades, worldwide, souls just like us have been felled and left for dead in so many ways over and over -- brought down by naiveté, by lack of love, by suddenly realizing one deadly thing or another, by not realizing something else soon enough, by being ambushed and assaulted by various cultural and personal shocks in the extreme.
We all have a heritage and history of being gutted, and yet remember this especially ... we have also, of necessity, perfected the knack of resurrection.
Over and over again we have been the living proof that that which has been exiled, lost, or foundered - can be restored to life again. This is as true and sturdy a prognosis for the destroyed worlds around us as it was for our own once mortally wounded selves.
...Though we are not invulnerable, our risibility supports us to laugh in the face of cynics who say "fat chance," and "management before mercy," and other evidences of complete absence of soul sense. This, and our having been 'to Hell and back' on at least one momentous occasion, makes us seasoned vessels for certain. Even if you do not feel that you are, you are.
Even if your puny little ego wants to contest the enormity of your soul, the smaller self can never for long subordinate the larger Self. In matters of death and rebirth, you have surpassed the benchmarks many times. Believe the evidence of any one of your past testings and trials. Here it is: Are you still standing? The answer is, Yes! (And no adverbs like "barely" are allowed here). If you are still standing, ragged flags or no, you are able. Thus, you have passed the bar. And even raised it. You are seaworthy.
...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. Do not make yourself ill with overwhelm. There is a tendency too to fall into being weakened by perseverating 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? You have all the resource you need to ride any wave, to surface from any trough.
...In the language of aviators and sailors, ours is to sail forward now, all balls out. Understand the paradox: If you study the physics of a waterspout, you will see that the outer vortex whirls far more rapidly than the inner one. To calm the storm means to quiet the outer layer, to cause it, by whatever countervailing means, to swirl much less, to more evenly match the velocity of the inner, far less volatile core - till whatever has been lifted into such a vicious funnel falls back to Earth, lays down, is peaceable again.
One of the most important steps you can take to help calm the storm is to not allow yourself to be taken in a flurry of overwrought emotion or despair - thereby accidentally contributing to the swale and the swirl. 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 in the midst of "success right around the corner, but as yet still unseen" 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 harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But ... that is not what great ships are built for.
...This comes with much love and prayer that you remember who you came from, and why you came to this beautiful, needful Earth.
Clarissa Pinkola Estes
I was aware that I was fully, completely entangled in what I have been making real, but I didn't care! It was all too much. The pain, the sadness, the FRUSTRATION were too overwhelming to ask Spirit for a shift! And what reality shift anyway? None of these were shifting in any way! So I cried and cried in my desperation, overwhelm, hopelessness and in my feeling of being completely lost, of not wanting to go on anymore. I was not only doubting that I couldn't change a thing but I was seeing the proof that none of us could!
Right then a beloved friend of mine sent me an e-mail, forwarding me a text written by Clarissa Pinkola-Estes, and a quote of Osho. Talk about synchronicity! I am including both below, they say it all...After having read it amid tears, with all kinds of emotional outbursts....I became aware of the fact that how much I took the outside world into my being and started to embody it...overnight! How much I became all of the suffering, all of the pain, overwhelm, powerlessness of the whole universe....A song started to play in my head..
"Oh Great Spirit,
Earth, Sun, Sky and Sea
you are inside
and all around me."
Spirit often communicates with me through songs playing in my head, putting them in loop, especially if I am too busy or overly preoccupied to listen to Spirit. I started to sing along....breaking into more tears...This time of relief. Great Spirit is always in me and around me, regardless the appearance! My heart is still very raw and tender. The words of Clarissa Pinkola-Estes are like a balm for my soul today. I hope it will sooth your being too when you are troubled.
As Clarissa says Great Ships are not made to stay in safe harbors. I Know the Truth of that! I know we were made for these times, I know we came here to BE the Light in darkness and not to succumb to it. I just need to rest a moment and gather the pieces of my heart together, collect the bones and sing to them...to awaken them...
I HEAR the call in my bones! Being "in the safe harbor" is not doing it anymore! Yes, like Osho is saying, Satyuga IS possible, and it will come! Yet what we need are leaders, True Leaders. Leaders not followed by people, but Leaders who follow their Higher Heart, the Divine Intelligence, their Spirit's vision, that are free to BE ALL THAT THEY CAN BE OPENLY, FEARLESSLY and POWERFULLY! The time of hiding is over, it must be over! We are called more than ever to step into our full Essence and Presence openly, in a public way. No more withholding of what we Truly are! We have been in hiding for a long time now, tired and afraid of being swallowed by this old dying world as it had happened to so many of us so many, many times! Being Light Workers, Light Beings privately in our homes is not doing it any more. As Osho is saying, humanity is in need of us, as it has never been in need before! We are being called urgently to bypass all our fears, resistances and step into and stand in our Divine Essence and Presence firmly. These are the times we are truly made of...So after throwing our temper tantrums and putting together all the pieces of our broken hearts it is time for us to ARISE as US!
from my tender Heart to yours...
Image source: Unknown
"A new dawn for the whole human race, a new innocence, a new childhood, a new satyuga...the age of truth is possible. But loving aware people have to take the bold step of expressing themselves. They have enjoyed their experience and they have thought their work was finished. I want you to remember always: When you have something to share, share it! Humanity is in need, as it has never been in need, of people who can create new hope for a new dawn!" Osho
To: My dear members of the Tribe of the Sacred Heart, Scar Clan
Do Not Lose Heart, We Were Made for These Times
by Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés
Mis estimados,
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 right now. It is true, one has to have strong cojones and ovarios to withstand much of what passes for "good" in our culture today. Abject disregard of what the soul finds most precious and irreplaceable and the corruption of principled ideals have become, in some large societal arenas, "the new normal," the grotesquerie of the week.
It is hard to say which one of the current egregious matters has rocked people's worlds and beliefs more. Ours is a time of almost daily jaw-dropping 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 - 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 cannot tell you often enough that we are definitely the leaders we have been waiting for, and that we have been raised, since childhood, for this time precisely.
...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 crafts 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.
I would like to take your hands for a moment and assure you that you are built well for these times. Despite your stints of doubt, your frustrations in arighting all that needs change right now, or even feeling you have lost the map entirely, you are not without resource, you are not alone.
Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. In your deepest bones, you have always known this is so.
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 forest greater. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.
... We have been in training for a dark time such as this, since the day we assented to come to Earth. For many decades, worldwide, souls just like us have been felled and left for dead in so many ways over and over -- brought down by naiveté, by lack of love, by suddenly realizing one deadly thing or another, by not realizing something else soon enough, by being ambushed and assaulted by various cultural and personal shocks in the extreme.
We all have a heritage and history of being gutted, and yet remember this especially ... we have also, of necessity, perfected the knack of resurrection.
Over and over again we have been the living proof that that which has been exiled, lost, or foundered - can be restored to life again. This is as true and sturdy a prognosis for the destroyed worlds around us as it was for our own once mortally wounded selves.
...Though we are not invulnerable, our risibility supports us to laugh in the face of cynics who say "fat chance," and "management before mercy," and other evidences of complete absence of soul sense. This, and our having been 'to Hell and back' on at least one momentous occasion, makes us seasoned vessels for certain. Even if you do not feel that you are, you are.
Even if your puny little ego wants to contest the enormity of your soul, the smaller self can never for long subordinate the larger Self. In matters of death and rebirth, you have surpassed the benchmarks many times. Believe the evidence of any one of your past testings and trials. Here it is: Are you still standing? The answer is, Yes! (And no adverbs like "barely" are allowed here). If you are still standing, ragged flags or no, you are able. Thus, you have passed the bar. And even raised it. You are seaworthy.
...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. Do not make yourself ill with overwhelm. There is a tendency too to fall into being weakened by perseverating 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? You have all the resource you need to ride any wave, to surface from any trough.
...In the language of aviators and sailors, ours is to sail forward now, all balls out. Understand the paradox: If you study the physics of a waterspout, you will see that the outer vortex whirls far more rapidly than the inner one. To calm the storm means to quiet the outer layer, to cause it, by whatever countervailing means, to swirl much less, to more evenly match the velocity of the inner, far less volatile core - till whatever has been lifted into such a vicious funnel falls back to Earth, lays down, is peaceable again.
One of the most important steps you can take to help calm the storm is to not allow yourself to be taken in a flurry of overwrought emotion or despair - thereby accidentally contributing to the swale and the swirl. 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 in the midst of "success right around the corner, but as yet still unseen" 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 harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But ... that is not what great ships are built for.
...This comes with much love and prayer that you remember who you came from, and why you came to this beautiful, needful Earth.
Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Do Not Lose Heart, We Were Made for These Times
Copyright ©2001, 2003, 2004 Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estés, All rights reserved. Creative Commons License by which author and publishers grant permission to copy, distribute and transmit this particular work under the conditions that use be non-commercial, that the work be used in its entirety word for word, and not altered or added to, not subtracted from, and that it carry author's name and this full copyright notice. For other Permissions: ngandelman@aol.com
CODA
The original title is Letter To A Young Activist During Troubled Times: with the subtitle, Do Not Lose Heart, We were Made for These Times.
CODA
The original title is Letter To A Young Activist During Troubled Times: with the subtitle, Do Not Lose Heart, We were Made for These Times.
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