Courage: Trusting Spirit’s Lead

“You must do the things you think you cannot do…”

 Eleanor Roosevelt

 What is courage, if not the ability to act as our spirits lead?

I often hear struggle ensue when our inner knowing provides a clear path forward – but not an easy one.  We sometimes then wrestle mightily to honor that inner wisdom – our intuition or our body knowing – often for longer than we care to admit!    Yet, to not act on these knowings means we risk losing ourselves, and over time the costs become clear.

Thus, these moments come, as Denise Levertov describes below, where struggle gives way to courage, opening our hearts to own strength, and to faith in Spirit’s leading – even when this means swimming upstream of others’ expectations.  

In these moments, it is as if we are touched by a far greater force.  We find that we can do “the things (we) think (we)  cannot do.”

 Where is your inner wisdom leading you?

What is the “the thing you think you cannot do?’

Where is the place to put your attention that will help you live your courage?

Variation On A Theme By Rilke

(The Book of Hours, Book I, Poem 1, Stanza 1)

 A certain day became a presence to me;

there it was, confronting me — a sky, air, light:

a being. And before it started to descend

from the height of noon, it leaned over

and struck my shoulder as if with

the flat of a sword, granting me

honor and a task. The day’s blow

rang out, metallic — or it was I, a bell awakened,

and what I heard was my whole self

saying and singing what it knew: I can.

 ~ Denise Levertov ~