01/27/2026
The most challenging aspect of being a facilitator, a teacher, a space holder — is ‘we’ are also human. And moving through the very same emotions as our ‘students’.
Yet as I stood in front of the incredible souls who attended last evening’s workshop, and my voice cracked over and over as I read a passage by Clarissa Pinole Estes,
I felt so humbled.
So grateful.
So blessed.
To be alongside each and every ‘student’, who has attended one or many classes/workshops, and who is walking hand-in-hand — on this crazy, messy, beautiful journey.
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“My friends, do not lose heart. We were made for these times.
Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations. 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, 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 water. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this storm, I assure you that the long timbers of your prow and rudder come from a greater forest.
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 either. That is spending the wind without raising the sails.
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 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.
One of the most calming and powerful actions we can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show our soul.
For a Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times.” 〰️💛〰️
