COURAGE AND THE HEART
Thinking about the heart, talking to my mother — we were talking about the idea of courage.
There are people that seem to have extraordinary courage in facing the challenges that cloud around them — yet somehow, they go ahead, step by step, striding forward.
A friend of mine lost her husband of many years — last week. Contemplating her, and others, it’s the time of being alone — still gathered round the ring of friends and family. Still, the buoyant strength will lie in the resilience of the heart, the containing the pain and moving ahead.
Nothing stands still, even in the emergence of death; still, the heart beats onwards in the stance of courage. And the idea of heart, and courage, they are the same.
I go back, searching into the heart of the meaning.
Listening to Douglas Harper, the notes of the string of the word go back into the mists of time, around 1300, from the Old French — corage, “heart, innermost feelings; temper,” the rougher, Vulgar Latin of the common people of ancient Rome: *coraticum (and by reference to the Italian coraggio, and the Spanish coraje), from the Latin — cor “heart,” a metaphor for inner strength. In Middle English — from the 12th century, onwards, this word was used broadly for “what is in one’s mind or thoughts,” and thereby “bravery,” but also “wrath, pride, confidence.”
The core, the courage, the heart of things — at the center, driving forward in the force of being. Step by step, the momentum of the heart full.
I admire that courage of the heart.
T | decatur island
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