Courage When fear grips us we hold what is precious within - kept there it dies... When we were children we looked to heroes - we did for a number of reasons. I recall I did so to help me face things or situations that frightened me. There was this one nightmare when I must have been around nine or ten. I grew up on a farm in the Central Valley of California, and there was a canal running through our property. We, like everyone in the Valley, used the waters from the Delta-Mendota Canal/Central Valley Project to irrigate our farm. In this nightmare I was standing on the banks of the canal in the bright daylight. Off in the distance I could see a large black bull with shiny and sharp horns. He was pawing at the earth, and snorting something fierce. He sees me, and begins a loping run towards me, which develops into a mad raging rush, and I am unprotected. I awake in a sweat. I couldn't bring myself to say anything to my Mom, for fear of appearing weak and frightened, a taboo for a young boy, though I was feeling both. My only defense was to imagine a super-hero who would come to my rescue to save me. And, I did - I ran through any number of powerful saviors that included Superman, Batman and Robin, John Wayne, and the Shadow, the latter, who from the darker realms and powers of invisibility, I felt would be equipped to deal with the menacing figure of the dark and raging bull... This was merely a stop-gap, a measure of an insecure youth calling upon outside forces to face my inner deamons. It was much later, after any number of life-experiences, that I was led the realization that courage comes from within, and is not a commodity purchased from without - no gunslingers need apply. It takes the simple form, though not simple to actually do, of picking yourself up after a fall. I imagine the roots rest in that early period when we moved from crawling to those first tentative and unstable steps of walking. Then, we had only a short distance to fall, but fall we did. I imagine, too, that the encouragement we received for our successes, and the lack of ridicule for our falling, gave us the wherewithal later in life to pick ourselves up with the knowledge that we could always take one more step. Courage isn't the lack of fear in the face of daunting elements or threatening situations - fear is something that is common to us all, and it stands as a signal of potential danger. Seen correctly, it is an early-warning signal that something is amiss, and some action is needed. Courage, is that inner response, that deep down spirited quality, that enables you in the face of your fears, and in spite of them, to pick yourself up after each fall, and to take the next step... Return