Our Deepest Fear

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?

Actually who are we not to be?

You are a child of God.

Your playing small doesn't serve the world.

There is nothing enlightened about shrinking

so that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine as children do.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.

It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.

And when we let our own light shine,

we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

          - Marianne Williamson

The Connectivity Project

Inspiration

PEACE OF WILD THINGS

When despair grows in me

and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting for their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

by Wendell Berry

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about your despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting

--over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

Mary Oliver

Even a

small star shines

in the darkness.

     

     -- Charles Beard