An Unexpected View of Boldness

Yesterday, I parked my car a couple of blocks away from the small community I was about to visit.  As I walked, I turned the corner and was quite surprised at what was in my view. Our days and nights have been chilly, and we have had quite a bit of rain with more to come.  It does not feel like spring to me, but this tree senses it is time to stir, and that regardless, it must continue its role of being a tree.  I know there was at least one bee, high in the tree, who was grateful.  

For friends in more northern climes, and for those who are struggling with the aftermath of various storms, take heart.  There is a pulse.  

My thanks to author David Whyte for these encouraging words:  

Courage is a word that tempts us to think outwardly, to run bravely against opposing fire, to do something under besieging circumstance, and perhaps, above all, to be seen to do it in public, to show courage; to be celebrated in story, rewarded with medals, given the accolade, but a look at its linguistic origins leads us in a more interior direction and toward its original template, the old Norman French, Coeur, or heart. Courage is the measure of our heartfelt participation with life, with another, with a community, a work, a future.

To be courageous, is not necessarily to go anywhere or do anything except to make conscious those things we already feel deeply and then to live through the unending vulnerabilities of those consequences.

To be courageous is to seat our feelings deeply in the body and in the world: to live up to and into the necessities of relationships that often already exist, with things we find we already care deeply about: with a person, a future, a possibility in society, or with an unknown that begs us on and always has begged us on. Whether we stay or whether we go - to be courageous is to stay close to the way we are made.

COURAGE Excerpted From CONSOLATIONS:
The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning
of Everyday Words
© 2015 David Whyte and Many Rivers Press