Dragons are Princesses

 “.....what we believe becomes what we do. “

Steven Charleston, Ladder to the Light: An Indigenous Elder’s Meditations on Hope and Courage (Broadleaf: 2021), 60–61, 67.

"Thank you Davis for sending me this quote. In the context of everything that is happening right now I wonder how many of us know what we believe to the extent that we are aware of what we do??? By this I mean that until we have a set of values that we believe strongly enough to bring our every action up to the light and judge it on our beliefs then we are hiding from ourselves and perpetuating our own myth of being "good" whatever that might look like. Over generations we "north american middle class" have slipped into a complacency of entitlement that is only possible to reconcile our beliefs to if we don't shine a light below the surface. In all our doing good works for charities, donating money, being tolerant, even feeling empathy we do not look inside ourselves to see our culpability in the injustices happening everywhere. 

“Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. 

Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.”
Rainer Maria Rilke

Whew, imagine?? 

All the fire breathing dragons we fear just want to be loved. 

All the prickly shelled people and all the arrogance and cruelty of humankind caused by longing to be loved, and when that longing is combined with a deep fear of not being worthy we assume unloveable traits so no one will see we are vulnerable to heartbreak.

Most everyone wants love, only most everyone doesn't accept that to get real love they need to give real love and open themselves to heartache. There are no guarantees, only rewards beyond one's imagination. 

“Love and kindness are never wasted. They always make a difference. They bless the one who receives them, and they bless you, the giver.”
Barbara De Angelis

"For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone."
Audrey Hepburn

Cheers
Jeanne

“The historical irony is that European Christians coming to the Americas were escaping highly stratified and intolerant societies; in North America they encountered societies that were open and tolerant; but in response, these European immigrants simply duplicated the oppression they had known by practicing it on the Native People.”
Steven Charleston, Coming Full Circle: Constructing Native Christian Theology

“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”
— Fyodor Dostoevsky

Cheers

Jeanne