Greetings, Luminous One!
When searching for ways to more Courageously face today's confounding issues, I often reflect upon other epochs in our earth's history when there must have been a similar uncertainty and unnerving feeling of the world being upside-down and inside-out.
World wars, natural disasters and pandemics have rocked civilization to the core many times in the past, yet somehow there have always been survivors to tell tales of triumph in adversity. Global mythology and holy books are full of such stories of Courage.
My question is: how did they summon their mettle? Was it always there just waiting to be tapped, or did it spring up spontaneously in an existential moment?
Fear doesn't shut you down; it wakes you up. -Veronica Roth
The first stage of Courage inherently involves facing the stark reality that a danger truly exists. All avoidant hiding from that fact must cease.
Only when we dare to acknowledge a threat can we mount a resistance to it (the second stage of Courage).
Pulling last month's theme into this discussion, perhaps the most courageous thing we can do, therefore, is to boldly see Truth, speak Truth and be Truth, even if it's uncomfortable and means going against consensus reality.
Recently, I had a message from Merlin that spoke to this: he said that many people are living in a "channel of fear" without even realizing it, and this is hampering their ability to make Courageous decisions.
And where has this fear brought us? To be a nation increasingly divided and passionately torn. We know we are witnessing the unravelling of a great dream of a democratic union, one that was worth fighting for at one time.
The next question that must be asked is, "Am I contributing to this breakdown by holding judgements that have alienated me from certain people or groups?"
Now, please understand that I perceive you as a wonderful person who is committed to your spiritual evolution, or you wouldn't be here.
The reason these questions must be continually asked, however, is because we've been presented with issues that seem to demand our declaration of which side of the fence we're on. The problem is, if we're on one side, the other side is destined to become the new enemy.
This kind of entrenchment is the real culprit as it perpetuates the "Either/Or" mentality.
This slicing-and-dicing of society has been intentionally accomplished through a stealthy program that many people are beginning to awaken to, and I suggest we "Just say no" to it.
Let's face that dangerous division and Courageously stand against it.
Because we recognize this as a set-up from a dualistic perspective, don't we? And we also know that it's the reality we're leaving as we begin to master the higher realms of non-duality.
In non-duality, we can still have opinions, but they won't keep us from recognizing the Truth of our Oneness with each other.
We can still choose love no matter what the different viewpoints are. It all starts with Courage.
When we honor those who have served this imperfect, topsy-turvy country of ours, let us hold high the vision they felt was worthy of their sacrifice.
And remember that at our cores, we have more in common than that which divides us: We are One, we are Love, we are Truth.
A Brave And Startling Truth by Maya Angelou We, this people, on a small and lonely planet Traveling through casual space Past aloof stars, across the way of indifferent suns To a destination where all signs tell us It is possible and imperative that we learn A brave and startling truth And when we come to it To the day of peacemaking When we release our fingers From fists of hostility And allow the pure air to cool our palms When we come to it When the curtain falls on the minstrel show of hate And faces sooted with scorn are scrubbed clean When battlefields and coliseum No longer rake our unique and particular sons and daughters Up with the bruised and bloody grass To lie in identical plots in foreign soil When the rapacious storming of the churches The screaming racket in the temples have ceased When the pennants are waving gaily When the banners of the world tremble Stoutly in the good, clean breeze When we come to it When we let the rifles fall from our shoulders And children dress their dolls in flags of truce When land mines of death have been removed And the aged can walk into evenings of peace When religious ritual is not perfumed By the incense of burning flesh And childhood dreams are not kicked awake By nightmares of abuse When we come to it Then we will confess that not the Pyramids With their stones set in mysterious perfection Nor the Gardens of Babylon Hanging as eternal beauty In our collective memory Not the Grand Canyon Kindled into delicious color By Western sunsets Nor the Danube, flowing its blue soul into Europe Not the sacred peak of Mount Fuji Stretching to the Rising Sun| Neither Father Amazon nor Mother Mississippi who, without favor, Nurture all creatures in the depths and on the shores These are not the only wonders of the world When we come to it We, this people, on this minuscule and kithless globe Who reach daily for the bomb, the blade and the dagger Yet who petition in the dark for tokens of peace We, this people on this mote of matter In whose mouths abide cankerous words Which challenge our very existence Yet out of those same mouths Come songs of such exquisite sweetness That the heart falters in its labor And the body is quieted into awe We, this people, on this small and drifting planet Whose hands can strike with such abandon That in a twinkling, life is sapped from the living Yet those same hands can touch with such healing, irresistible tenderness That the haughty neck is happy to bow And the proud back is glad to bend Out of such chaos, of such contradiction We learn that we are neither devils nor divines When we come to it We, this people, on this wayward, floating body Created on this earth, of this earth Have the power to fashion for this earth A climate where every man and every woman Can live freely without sanctimonious piety Without crippling fear When we come to it We must confess that we are the possible We are the miraculous, the true wonder of this world That is when, and only when We come to it. ~~~
Much love and infinite blessings,
-Hope
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