WOMEN: CLAIMING YOUR WINGS

Again for reasons I can't explain this lesson keeps coming across my path, year-after-year, in my favorite book by Emmet Fox. This time, I was reminded of it when I visited the butterfly exhibit at California Academy of Sciences. The butterflies drew me back to my book and ultimately to share Emmet's story with you again. Each time, I read it, I see something new in it. Emmet Fox's book is one that I've mentioned before many times. I've been reading for about 10 years over and over; its pages worn, tattered and loved. 

The butterfly story also seems so relevant to these times of challenge, change and opportunity. I am thinking maybe you will benefit too, even if you read the story at another time. Amidst the tests and trials and tragedies of our world, RENEWAL is always a personal option. It is available to us at any time. Anne Frank set an example of this human miracle in her famed Diary written in the worst of conditions, influencing generations around the world in the years that followed:

"Everyone has inside of him a piece of good news. The good news is that you don't know how great you can be! How much you can love! What you can accomplish! And what your potential is!"
                                                                                         --- Anne Frank

CLAIMING YOUR WINGS
by Emmet Fox

"To me the butterfly teaches the most important lesson that we human beings ever have to learn. You all know his story. He lived what seemed to him a very long time as a worm---what we call the humble caterpillar. Now the life of a caterpillar could be taken as the very type and symbol of restriction. He lives on a green leaf in the forest, and that is about all he knows.

Then one day the little caterpillar finds certain strange stirrings going on within himself. The old green leaf, for some reason, no longer seems sufficient. He becomes moody and discontent. He feels the need for a bigger, finer, and more interesting life. His instinct tells him that where there is true desire there must be fulfillment.

And so the wonderful thing happens: the butterfly emerges beautiful, graceful, now endowed with wings, and instead of crawling about on a restricted leaf, he soars above the trees, above the forest itself---free, unrestricted, his own True Self."

Is it time for you to claim your wings? Perhaps, even reclaim your wings?

If you are at all like me, this may not even be the first time you've claimed them. I find that sometimes I forget I have the option to soar. It is easy to get so entangled in life and work that we forget we have this freedom to rise above whatever our circumstances, choosing our attitude and our direction...deciding for ourselves to be GREAT in our own right.

I leave you to give it some thought as I take off, stretching my wings out to soar again...

Join me?

Debbe

Debbe Kennedy
author, Putting Our Differences to Work
2010 Axiom Business Book Award Winner - Bronze
Founder, Global Dialogue Center | Home of Women in the Lead

Comments

[Layla Wafiyyah]

Well, talk about synchronicity! You article made me weep...in the knowledge that I too, can be great...The way Allah intended for me to be. Thank you, dear Forever Sister!

[debbe Kennedy]

Dear Layla, I am so glad you saw the Divine connection. Emmet Fox's message has helped me many times to understand the "stirrings" and to realize they were not about others as much as about God's plan for me. One stands differently with this knowledge. It means a great deal for us to have this special moment of connectedness. It means a great deal to me.

As my dear brother told me one time. We are all given our own play. It has a few main characters thoughtful placed in it. The rest is scenery. It is how we respond to it in our journey to the One.

Love, Debbe