I got my first tattoo last week.
It’s the first line of one of my favorite quotes by Terence McKenna:
Nature loves courage.
You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles.
Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up.
This is the trick. This is what all these teachers & philosophers who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood.
This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall.
This is how magic is done.
By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it’s a feather bed.
Ok I know the sentiment is nothing groundbreaking. Be brave, chase your dreams, don’t fear failure/the unknown.
I’ve heard iterations of it my whole life… But sometimes these cliche universal truths need to be said in a certain way & find you at a certain stage of evolution to finally land. I found this quote at the beginning of a year full of massive change.
Some of the best decisions I made in the last year came with an enormous amount of fear & doubt. Fear and doubt don’t always mean inevitable failure. They’re often precursory to growth. Every cell in your body sensing a transition of seasons: the wilting & death of some things (but vibrant regrowth in their place)
If there is a subtle internal friction between you and something – perhaps it’s because an alternate something is scratching at the door of this reality asking you to pivot & create the space for it to come in.
And perhaps you are waiting on what you think is courage. But really you are waiting for the absence of fear and uncertainty. In which case, you may wait forever.
Courage is not confidence.
Courage is knowing that dreams are meant to be pursued, not achieved.
Courage is knowing that failure is very possible.
Courage is feeling that fear intimately, yet choosing to walk forward, with shaky knees, hand-in-hand with it.
When you find the courage to throw yourself into the abyss of uncertainty, you make new realities available to you. Nature will reward you.
Create whatever mosaic of experience is most beautiful to you. Hurl yourself in a new direction if you must, because be it by the process or the outcome, some next evolution of you will be alchemized.
And you may, eventually, land in a featherbed.
Peace & Love,
Sofia