We Were Made
For These Times
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 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 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 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 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 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.
By
Clarissa Pinkola Estes
American poet, post-trauma specialist and
Jungian psychoanalyst, author of Women Who Run With the Wolves.
