Trust and Keep Going

Lick the Fire
You don’t have to trust the process.
You just have to keep moving forward
through the fear.
If we had certainty,
if we could control the outcome
the risk wouldn’t be there
and without the risk
the growth does not run deep.
And believe me, it would
not be nearly as fun, or
transformative.
I try not to promise trust, or safety.
Art is not safe at all.
That is what you can trust,
it will take you into
dangerous territory, but,
you won’t be harmed.
Honor your instincts
instead of your controlling nature.
Stop trying to understand,
to grasp, to know, to get the
hang of it. Really, stop it.
The true work will often
feel like you are about
to start flying, lifting off.
Feels like bliss and
throwing up all at once,
enjoy the uncertainty of the ride.
Stop trying to predict or
create the outcome.
Stop convincing yourself
you have to trust and be fearless.
You don’t.
There is a new story,
the only storyline is this one:
KEEP DOING IT.
That’s it. That is how you
will get where you need to go.
Stop requiring so much
security during your process.
Let the freefall be your lover.
The feeling of no bottom be
welcome. Welcome the thought:
you might not get this one right.
Welcome the Uh-Oh! at the
beginning of almost
every stroke. Release the
need to dominate. Submit.
Let the process completely make
you come undone so
you drop your ribbons
to the floor and laugh
and cry and lay your
head upon your creation.
Keep the dialogue happening,
talk out loud if you need to.
Talk to the muse as if
she could really hear you. She can.
By allowing the fear to
be there without stopping
your work, the chatter
will not cease, but it will
change. You are the over-comer now.
You are an unstoppable creative.
You don’t have to trust the process.
Just don’t put your brush down.
Don’t put it down. Listen.
Allow yourself to get scared to life
instead of scared to death.
Don’t step back from the flame.
Lick the fire. Be burned if you have to.
And put the ashes into the creation.
All of it, every fear and wound,
becomes useful here.
Desire trumps the need to trust.
If you are not shaking in your boots
you haven’t yet, even arrived.

Declaration of the Four Sacred Things

The Earth is a living, conscious being. In company with cultures of many different times and places, we name these things as sacred: air, fire, water, and earth.

Whether we see them as the breath, energy, blood, and body of the Mother, or as the blessed gifts of a Creator, or as symbols of interconnected systems that sustain life, we know that nothing can live without them.

To call these things sacred is to say that they have a value beyond their usefulness for human ends, that they themselves become the standard by which our acts, our economics, our laws, and our purposes must be judged. No one has the right to appropriate them or profit from them at the expense of others. Any government that fails to protect them forfeits its legitimacy.

All people, all living things, are part of the earth life, and so are sacred. No one of us stands higher or lower than any other. Only justice can assure balance; only ecological balance can sustain freedom. Only in freedom can that fifth sacred thing we call spirit flourish in its full diversity.

To honor the sacred is to create conditions in which nourishment, sustenance, habitat, knowledge, freedom, and beauty can thrive. To honor the sacred is to make love possible.

To this we dedicate our curiosity, our will, our courage, our silences, and our voices. To this we dedicate our lives.

   --Starhawk