Courage it takes

Courage it takes
To be oneself
Fulfilled and free
To be all true
Standing up tall
Surfing the winds
That rip and rattle
To shake it lose
And liberate all
To be detached
Let go entirely
In the present
Moment upon
Moment again
Until here now
I am that I am
And that is all
As well as nothing
Ever and never.

“Blue Courage” — a Dorian mode blues medley

Grammar of animacy

“I come here to listen, to nestle in the curve of the roots in a soft hollow of pine needles, to lean my bones against the column of white pine, to turn off the voice in my head until I can hear the voices outside it: the shhh of wind in needles, water trickling over rock, nuthatch tapping, chipmunks digging, beechnut falling, mosquito in my ear, and something more — something that is not me, for which we have no language, the wordless being of others in which we are never alone.”
— Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer, p. 48

Courage it takes to step out