Letter To a Young Activist During Troubled Times

By Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D. 

My dear 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 right now. It is true, one has to be exceptionally strong to withstand much of what passes for "good" in our culture today. Abject disregard of what the soul finds most precious and irreplaceable and the corruption of principled ideals have become, in some large societal arenas, "the new normal," the grotesquerie of the week. It is hard to say which one of the current egregious matters has rocked people's worlds and beliefs more. 

Ours is a time of almost daily jaw-dropping 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 -- 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 cannot tell you often enough that we are definitely the leaders we have been waiting for, and that we have been raised since childhood for this time precisely.

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 crafts 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. I would like to take your hands for a moment and assure you that you are built well for these times. Despite your stints of doubt, your frustrations in a righting all that needs change right now, or even feeling you have lost the map entirely, you are not without resource, you are not alone. 

Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. In your deepest bones, you have always known this is so. 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. 

We have been in training for a dark time such as this, since the day we assented to come to Earth. For many decades, worldwide, souls just like Us have been felled and left for dead in so many ways over and over brought down by naivete, by lack of love, by suddenly realizing one deadly thing or another, by not realizing something else soon enough, by being ambushed and assaulted by various cultural and personal shocks in the extreme. We have a history of being gutted, and yet remember this especially... 

We have also, of necessity, perfected the knack of resurrection. Over and over again we have been the living proof that that which has been exiled, lost, or foundered can be restored to life again. This is as true and sturdy a prognosis for the destroyed worlds around us as it was for our own once mortally wounded selves. 

Though we are not invulnerable, our risibility supports us to laugh in the face of cynics who say "fat chance," and "management before mercy," and other evidences of complete absence of soul sense.

This, and our having been to Hell and back on at least one momentous occasion, makes us seasoned vessels for certain. Even if you do not feel that you are, you are. 

Even if your puny little ego wants to contest the enormity of your soul, that smaller self can never for long subordinate the larger Self. In matters of death and rebirth, you have surpassed the benchmarks many times. 

Believe the evidence of any one of your past testings and trials. Here it is: Are you still standing? The answer is, Yes! (And no adverbs like "barely" are allowed here). If you are still standing, ragged flags or no, you are able. Thus, you have passed the bar. And even raised it. You are seaworthy. 

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. Do not make yourself ill with overwhelm. There is a tendency too to fall into being weakened by perseverating 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? You have all the resource you need to ride any wave, to surface from any trough. 

In the language of aviators and sailors, ours is to sail forward now, all balls out. Understand the paradox: If you study the physics of a waterspout, you will see that the outer vortex whirls far more quickly than the inner one. To calm the storm means to quiet the outer layer, to cause it, by whatever countervailing means, to swirl much less, to move more evenly match the velocity of the inner, far less volatile core -- till whatever has been lifted into such a vicious funnel falls back to Earth, lays down, is peaceable again. One of the most important steps you can take to help calm the storm is to not allow yourself to be taken in flurry of overwrought emotion or desperation thereby accidentally contributing to the swale and the swirl. 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 in the midst of "success right around the corner, but as yet still unseen" 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.

This comes with much love and prayer that you remember who you came from, and why you came to this beautiful, needful Earth. 

Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D. © 2003 C.P. Estes, All rights reserved.

Writing/Witnessing

When: 1^st and 3^rd Wednesdays of the month

First day: July 17, then Aug 7 and 12, 2013

Where: Good Shepherd Center

What is writing/witnessing?

It’s actually not really about writing.

It’s about giving all of the stuff that lives below the surface of your mind and your life a chance to come out and run around a little. It’s a way to access your gut feelings, get at those niggling little half-glimpsed ideas, and to live your inner life a little on the outside. It’s a way to safely vent. It’s a way for your subconscious to combine and recombine old ideas and new ideas, and to discover ideas you never thought you held, at least not in that form.

It’s process-based; it’s not an intellectual exercise although some great insights come out of it. If you like to write, it’s a great opportunity to get a little practice in. And if you think you’re not a writer, no one will notice. The nature of the work allows all voices to have a chance, in a respectful place and in an equal and respectful way.

It's the chance to be heard and recognized, without interruption or judgment. How often does that happen?

How does it work?

A writing prompt is randomly chosen, and then everyone writes in longhand whatever comes up in stream-of-consciousness for 10 minutes. If you can’t find something to write, you write the prompt, over and over again if you need to, in order to spark the next thought. This becomes a music of its own, and it helps you to never get lost.

After the timer goes off, each person in turn reads their writing out loud. No comments or editorializing is allowed, no judgment or feedback is given, just focused listening and acknowledgement. Then we do another round. And then another.

This is where the alchemy happens. We do five or six rounds per session, and you will find things coming up and out of you that you might not have known were in you—“I had no idea I thought that!”—or you might find ideas and feelings recombining in new ways.

Not only will your writing bring something wonderful and new to you, but listening to others will too. As we read aloud our words, one after the other, they flow into our communal safe space and we start to reflect on each other. You hear how other women processed the same prompt, and their thoughts resonate with something in you. With each round, something deeper happens.

What do I need to do this?

The only things you need to bring are a notebook and a pen or pencil, and your willingness to let your own words emerge without censoring or judging yourself.  Writing experience is not required, and there is nothing to do in between sessions.

Please also bring a willingness to listen to each woman as she reads her work out loud, to hold space for her and to release all judgment (even that editorializing voice inside your head).