walking the sacred spiral
walking the sacred spiral
“ We’d like a guarantee before making a decision or taking a risk,” Mark Nepo writes, “but the irony is that taking the risk is what opens us to our fate. It’s like wanting to know what things will taste like before putting them in your mouth. It just can’t be figured out that way.”
Last week I wrote about the six qualities I would choose to put in a Life Survival Kit and asked you what yours would be. The first one on my list was courage, leading me to this week’s blog, You Have to Fall to Fly.
I imagine each bird that learns to fly feels fear at falling from the nest, whether it jumps or is pushed. But it is the act of falling that sparks the reflex that is flying. A bird in the nest may be safe for a while, but it’s not what birds are meant to do.
Just like them, life organizes our experiences to open into what we need to learn next in order to fully express what is within us. Like them, we often do not know what we can do until we have to do it. But unlike birds, human beings can, and sometimes do, resist those urges mightily.
We may live an unfulfilled life of sadness and mental struggles rather than surrender to taking the courageous step that leads to freedom and soaring flight.
I have heard 12-Step people talk about the tremendous freedom they have experienced in the grace of getting their lives back through their surrender to recovery. Isn’t it interesting that sometimes it takes more courage to surrender and let go than to take direct action?
Is courage easy for you? What is calling for your courage today?
You Have to Fall to Fly
Tuesday, April 22, 2014