She talked about people in a conversation circle with her who described their own visions of hope. The person who said we get energy from hope. The homeless man who teaches people trying to finish their high school education. A woman who found hope through infertility to adoption.
Kate said that hope is about reaching out to find the help we need in order to make things happen. Because being without hope -- hopelessness -- is stuckness.
When we reach out for it, hope becomes our partner. We have the choice to sit and hope for something to happen. Or, with hope as our helpmate, we can proactively do a huge amount of work to propel us forward.
With hope, she said, it is not that we are then able to find something/someone who lines up with our pre-selected requirements. But that we are then able to recognize and be released into our own power.
Kate said that hope:
• sees what is possible when others do not;
• can imagine a way out, a way in, another way;
• is active waiting;
• does not yield;
• is the moving current that carries us forward;
• has the power to heal;
• is living in a world where everything -- frozen grass, snow scrapers, warm bed, coffee -- is holy.
I had only an eyeliner pencil in my purse, and used it in place of a pen to scribble down phrases as fast as I could.
Since then, I have seen the power of hope in so many ways. And how dejected and stuck we are without it. I have also seen that it is not an external power that chooses us. It is us who choose it.
In the Trying stage, there are naturally times of fear and hopelessness and despair and impatience. But always around us, available when we want to grab for it, is the comforting, energizing cloak of Hope, the healing, holy four-letter word that can help us realize the dreams that WE set in motion.
