Monday, November 08, 2004
Words from Clarissa Pinkola Estes
We Were Made for These Times
by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
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 right 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 luster 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, one to another.
by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
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 right 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 luster 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, one to another.
