Courage—Begins and Ends with Your Heart

My word for this year is "COURAGE." In truth, it chose me. I have a leather word cube that I flip around from time to time, it sits on top of my bathroom mirror—a morning inspirational reminder of being. Before the end of the year I had set it to "courage", and on one particular morning I noticed that the cube with that word facing forward was teetering over the edge. I took it as a sign or more of a metaphor that I too am teetering on the brink of courage, thinking about the brave things I have in store for myself this year. That day—we chose each other.

I decided to look up the word "courage" for it's origin (a geeky thing I love to do), to see if there was some deeper meaning to that word, I had a feeling there must be more. Within a two-second Google™ search, here is what I found—by the way, to say I was excited about what I unearthed would be an understatement. 

Etymologists agree that the word "courage" is derived from the Latin word "cor" which means...wait for it—"heart." And in its true origin of meaning it has nothing to do with heroic acts or bravery, but rather “To speak one’s mind by telling all, one’s heart.” The act of being and speaking openly from the heart, sharing our true feelings, and experiences, whatever they may be. Insert "no coincidences here" as I start off my year with this "lofty" goal to write daily and share my thoughts, feelings, and experiences with the world (or whoever is reading) from the space of my heart. Now I'm more in love with this word "courage" and will honor it for its original meaning and not its present day interpretation and use.

It has reminded me of when I published my second book of photographs titled "In Living Contrast", where alongside each image are my personal life philosophies and thoughts. Those images and words were displayed publicly during my last one-woman show, and if you read what I wrote, you would know as I know now, that show was an act of "courage". There it was, my heart and soul revealed across the walls of the gallery. I remember asking my dad to act as editor for the book, which he gladly did. After his remarks for grammatical and punctuation corrections were over, I asked him what he thought about what I wrote. He said, "I think you are revealing too much about yourself." I smiled and said in return to him, "Dad, that is what I like most about me." Why stop now?

Courage—this may just be my word for life. I have nothing to hide and everything to give. If all that I do, and all that I am, begins and ends with my heart, how can that possibly be anything other than courageous and right.