A Love Letter to the Universe (Natasha Charles, 2019)

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. 

Failure to commit is the high cost of low living. It goes both ways, failure to commit yourself, failure to commit someone else.

Doubt your doubts.

It's a vibration. That's why it can be interpreted multiple ways, as speech, as art, and so on.

 And we must awaken ourselves — rediscover that lost paradise, that child who was not afraid of the Universe in which he lived, that child who did not deny himself or his God, that child who had not listened to the dull, monotonous tune of condemnation, until he had isolated himself in fear from the Universe in guilt and, being antisocial, became anti-spiritual, and finally, for his own self-protection in the world that hurts so much, must regret until nature relieves him, which it always will — because limitation and want and lack and pain belong only to the lower order of perception.

There is a place on the side of the mountain we are ascending where, like the burden of the pilgrim, there is an ascent which, having gone beyond the peaks that obstructed the light around us, reaches an apex where no longer any shadows are cast. This is the light that is spoken of that lighteth every man ’s path.

And as you believe that you live, believe you are that light. As you believe in the possibility of your own soul, believe it is God. As you believe in God, believe in yourself. 

I am not broken.
There is nothing wrong with me.
I have no origination of sin.
Nothing belongs to me unless I take it for myself.

You are not broken.
There is nothing wrong with you.
You have no origination of sin.
Nothing belongs to you unless you take it for yourself.

We are not broken.
There is nothing wrong with us.
We have no origination of sin.
Nothing belongs to us unless we take it for ourselves.

Goddess can, Goddess in me can, I can.

Natasha can, Natasha in me can, I can.

 Tinogona - It is achieveable.

 So when I was hardly 22 years of age... And here I was a mother of four and my country had gained that independence and strangers started coming in, Americans, Australians. And these were women who would come to the community. And there was this particular woman. She sat with me and with other women, and she asked me one question that I'll never forget in my life "What are your dreams?". I never knew I'm supposed to have dreams because I was an abused woman, a silenced woman....

I was a child myself. And I'm sitting there, and I'm thinking "Am I supposed to have dreams in my life?". And other women started sharing their own dreams, and I was quiet. She looked at me and she said 'Young woman you didn't say anything. Tell me, what are your dreams?".

I couldn't bring my dreams. I knew I had these dreams in me, but for some reasons I couldn't because there was so much noise in my mind. I had been shaped to believe that I was nothing. And maybe it was the way she kept on looking at me, the way she nudged me to say something and when I opened my mouth I became a chatterbox and I said "I want to go to America. I want to have an undergraduate degree, I want to have a master's degree, and I want to have a PhD." There was silence. The other women looked at me and I could feel they were saying "Are you crazy? How can that be? You don't even have a high school education."

And I guess there was something about these American women when they were coming to my village. There was this sense of empowerment, sense of loving thyself, and I wanted that.... So when I talked about these degrees, I'd heard these women talking about these degrees and I wanted to have an education to change my life. And she looked at me and she said "Yes, it is achievable. If you desire those dreams. If you desire to change your life, yes tinogona." 

Tinogona in my culture, in my language it means "It is achievable".   I'd never heard of a woman declaring herself to believe they can achieve their own dreams. And when I left that place, I ran to my mother, and I said my mother, I have met someone who made me believe in my dreams. 

My mother looked at me and she said "Tererai, if you believe in what this stranger has said to you and you work hard and you achieve your dreams, not only are you defining who you are as a woman you are defining every life and generations to come." And I knew at that moment that my mother was handing me an inheritance. My mother knew that I needed to be the one to break this vicious cycle of poverty that runs so deep in my family and in the community. 

I needed to redefine the baton, so that I would never pass on this baton to my own girls. I needed to get this education so my mother said Tererai, write down your dreams and bury them the same way we buried the umbilical cord."...  

So my mother said "if you write down those dreams and you bury those dreams, your dreams will always remind you of their importance that you need to redefine your life, that you need to break this cycle that you need never to pass on this baton, this ugly baton of poverty, illiteracy, early marriage. So I wrote down my dreams...
 

Dr. Tererai Trent wrote down four goals: 1) to go to America; 2) to get a bachelor's degree; 3) to get a Master's degree; 4) to get a PhD. Her mother also told her that her that her dreams would have more meaning if she connecting them to something to improve her community. She created a 5th goal: to utilize her education to improve the lives of women and girls. She buried them under a rock where she sometimes sat and visualized for hours how she wanted her life to be. 

It took 8 years to obtain her GED via correspondence school, with 6 months in between classes, multiple failures and having to retake classes, which were paid for with money that her mother obtained by selling groundnuts and other produce. Even after multiple failures, her mother continued to give her money for classes. Eventually, her failing marks improved.

She then relocated to America where she worked three jobs and went to school while raising five children. While completing one of her degrees, she picked fruits and vegetables from a grocery store's trash bin daily to ensure that her children received nourishment.

It took twenty years - she achieved all of her dreams.

Tinogona - Si se puede - Yes I can - Yes you can - Yes we can

Know you are love, loved, loving and live in an abundant universe.

"I have earnestly worked and preached against violent tension, but there is a type of constructive nonviolent tension that is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must see the need of having nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men to rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood."

My Year of Saying Yes to Everything

Practical Ways to Live Your Life to The Fullest

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