Hello Beautiful SoulBodies  –

This is the time where we, in the Northern Hemisphere, are invited into the dark and all it offers….rest, quiet, slowing down, germination. Yet, our western society demands more light, more parties, more outward movement. I simply am not interested. You? What is so threatening about slowing down and entering the dark? Why is so much of our language tilted towards up and out and light as being better and more necessary? We simply would not know light without darkness! They are intrinsically connected. 

We need the dark for gestation. We need the slowing down for integration. We need the balance of the other end of the spectrum from upward mobility, lights that obscure the stars and constant motion. This is another way that we get to remember our humanness and dismiss the call of the machine. And it is true that when we slow down we may notice a little more of what is uncomfortable and under the surface…the grief, the horror and the yearning as well as the need for rest. And this is not necessarily an escape from the work we may be doing in the world. It is imperative that we change the tide of demand on our energies so that we can change the tide of the hate and the fear. 

I invite you to say no to the next more exhausting invitation and take a rest with some warm tea and an eye pillow in the dark. I invite you to explore the gifts of darkness…maybe even using the writing prompt… “In the darkness…”. And if some tears arrive, let them fall. And if some realizations happen, allow them. Perhaps this is the light spilling through with its longing for the dark embrace. 

Speaking of darkness I have an offering that has been sitting and waiting for me to simply share it. Back in June I was interviewed by Shanti O’Conner and Atom Bram of The Curiosity Lab on KPOV 88.9FM Community Radio here in Bend, Oregon. It was a lovely and quick 1/2 hour conversation about embodiment and presence. I have finally posted it on my Resources Page and here it is as well…give it a listen and let me know your thoughts. Anything you want me to go into more depth about? They would love to have me back!

May we allow the darkness to embrace and hold us

May we slow down enough to offer ourselves and those around us comfort and presence

May we honor the quiet in order to invite the song

May we bring wild blessings and fierce love to all we encounter

Practice Prompts:

• Pause to check in with your body on a daily or even hourly basis and see if you need some down time. Is there any craving in your system for slow and dark and quiet? Is there any way you can offer that to yourself…an hour on the couch with only candle light…a restorative yoga pose with an eye pillow for 10 minutes…a day off of all devices! Give yourself the gift of darkness, even for a little while.
• Consider your attitude towards darkness…many of us in the far north really feel a challenging impact from the lack of sunlight…but can there be gifts in it as well? Can you bring to consciousness how you relate to light and busyness? Explore how you might open up a more generous attitude towards dark…perhaps using the writing prompt, “In the darkness…” and write for 10 minutes. See what you discover.
• Listen to the episode Snail Juice and Bear Fat on The Emerald podcast.
• Share a yoga practice with me on December 24, 9:30-11am PST. The theme is Cozy Winter Cabin Practice. You can register with Two Dog Yoga.
• I offer one to one sessions, in-person in Bend, Oregon, and virtually all over the world. Currently, I am not taking on any more virtual clients and I have a waitlist for in person session.  I am happy to answer any questions and help you with referrals.  Please email me or schedule a free 20 minute Exploratory Session.

Live Streaming Practice Opportunities:

• Yoga for Resilience, Mondays, 9:30-11am PT, livestream through Body of Insight
• All Levels Yoga, Sundays… Dec 24, Jan 21, Feb 18, Mar 17, 9:30-11am PT, livestream through Two Dog Yoga
• On Demand Yoga Practices…All Levels… through Two Dog Yoga

Inspirational Wisdom:

Do Not Lose Heart, We Were Made for These Times

BY CLARISSA PINKOLA ESTES 

Mis estimados queridos, My Esteemed Ones:

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.

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. This is the original letter in full as written, unabridged.

Do Not Lose Heart, We Were Made for These Times ©2001, 2016, by Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Ph.D.