TRAPPED

For all the smart and ignorant, lost and know-it-all daughters. For the daughters who take the non-direct path and for those who stumble along. 

For those who learn to cry again and also to laugh. For all of them, regardless of whether they are whole, healed or not, and whatever their class, clan, ocean, or star.

For all the daughters who inherited love in abundance from the dear old ones who have already dear old women who have already left this world but still visit them. 

For all the daughters who once unwittingly listened to the advice of a wise woman who was directed to another, but who knew how to seize the right words at the right time to ignite a spark that lit their world thereafter. 

For all the daughters who listened to wise words and did not understand them, but understood them, but kept them for the day when they would come to understand them. 

For the daughters who row alone and who find needlessness for their elders in precious books, in revealing cinematic images, in paintings, in sculptures, in music or dance.  

For daughters who acquire the common sense and the necessary attitudes brought by the seasoned spirits of wisdom that appear at night, in dreams. 

For the daughters who are learning to listen to the wise old woman, their mind manifests themselves in the form of a strange inner sense of clairvoyance and intuition in hearing, feeling, and acting. 

For the daughters who know that this source of inner wisdom is like the pot of porridge in the fairy tale that, thanks to magic, never empties no matter how much is poured out.

For them, Blessed be their beauty, their pain, and their search. May they never forget that questions will not be answered until they consider both ways of seeing things: the linear and the inner.

For all those daughters and elders who support what is good and turn away from blind obedience to any dominant culture that rewards only the flat and censors thoughts. 

For all daughters and elders who are becoming ever more astute climbers of mystical mountains and travelers of steep paths.

For those who put more and more soul into what they say and speak for the animals, the waters, the lands, and the skies.

For those who have deeper and deeper cauldrons those that become magnifying lenses for the lighthouse light and those that rise up in the form of dry land in places where there was no land.

For those who are consumed by their teaching and learning and for those who rest before rising again with new enthusiasm.

For the night flowers whose fragrance touches deeply and lingers, even when the flowers are hidden.

For all the daughters and old women whose hands are not only on the cradle but also on the steering wheel of the world at hand.

For those who gave up something essential, something that gave them life and overcame it. For those who destroyed something and knew how to apologize with humility and love.

For those who left something undone, forgotten, or didn't understand its importance but went back and rebuilt it, smoothed it over, and bestowed the blessing as best they knew how.

For all the daughters and elders who took on the role of the guilty and who gave their blood and even their bones to repair what others
had torn apart.

For daughters and elders who always care more about giving love than being right. For them. May they realize how precious their lives are and that, despite any problems, they are always the bulwarks, the cornerstones, the dominant notes, and those examples that are so badly needed. 
are needed.

For the daughters and old women who are the living proof that despite cultural denigrations to the contrary, despite the heartache, wrong paths, accidents, and fires, the soul comes back to life and continues to live in a dazzling way. 

For all the daughters and old women who have long been sure, or have just discovered, that despite all their weaknesses and despite all the speeches of their ego, they were born with wisdom in their bodies and in their souls and that is their most valuable legacy and also their golden spark. 

For all the daughters and elders who are creating the references that really matter and who are proof that a woman is like a big tree, with her ability to move and not to stand still, she can survive the strongest storms and the greatest dangers, stand and find her way to continue her swaying and continue the dance.

For all the daughters who, whether they have just started or have been going for a while, are themselves while they are in training to become as ordinary majestic and as wise and rebellious and dangerous and dangerous as others say they are (and that is a lot).

Here's to them and to all of us great mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters. For them.  May we deepen and flourish, create ourselves from the ashes, and protect those arts, ideas, and hopes that cannot be allowed to disappear from the face of the earth.

For all of us, so that we may live long and love one another, let us love one another, being old young, and young old, now and forever.

                                                                         Clarissa  Pinkola  Estés