International Women’s Day has just passed, and in the US it’s Women’s History Month. Let us pause today to celebrate women–all women. The erasure of any women from this celebration–trans women, queer women, women of color, disabled women–does an injustice to all people.
Who is a woman you would like to celebrate today?
The steady footing of the ballet dancer is captivating. Their grace is astonishing. How many years of preparation did it take to achieve this mastery? How many weeks trudging off to the studio before school? How persistent they must have been in those early days when it seemed too hard to continue! -Lori Stone (CLF)
When have you found a way to persist, even though the mastery you sought seemed beyond your grasp?
Don’t forget that breaks to catch your breath, to assess how far you’ve come, to readjust your path are part of the process. Your persistence allows for you to rest when you need it, because life is a journey. There is no end goal more important than you arriving whole and free. -JeKaren Olaoya (CLF)
Take a break today. Allow yourself to use the rest to readjust.
I read recently about how important it is for young children (and all of us) to learn the feeling of futility — to know what it is to try something over and over and for it to not work, because it simply can’t. It’s only when we feel futility around changing something external to us that we can learn to change what is still available to us to change: ourselves, and how we internally relate to whatever couldn’t be changed. This strikes me as a kind of persistence, just as much as persistence that does lead to something external changing. If we persist to the point of finding internal harmony and balance, even in the face of things that are futile, so much more is possible. -Rose Gallogly (CLF)
When has the feeling of futility helped you find something else to be possible?
“May your strength persist like carbon,
Which has enabled all life our solar system knows,
Has known, or will ever know—
From diplodocuses to dandelions;
From blue–green algae to blue whales;
And from the katydids that cling to branches and chirrup through the night,
To the kale that clings to life aboard the International Space Station
And hurtles through the silent, endless night of outer space.”
-From a blessing by Stacey Elza
Where in nature do you find inspiration to persist?
