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.
