And her life in beauty, by my faith, shows that she is in God’s grace, and therefore one accords more faith to her deeds. For whatever she does, she always has God before her eyes, whom she calls to, serves and prays to in deed and word; nowhere does she let her faith decrease. ~ Christine de Pizan

Joan of Arc was born 600 years ago today – January 6, 1412. Peasant, mystic, warrior, saint – she was not a feminist, not a witch, not a pacifist, but certainly a woman who embodied courage as telling the story of who you are with your whole heart.

I’ve not been good at embodying my own courage of late. Instead I’ve struggled to hold the vision in the midst of unsuccessful activism, unsupportive dichotomies and unconnected communities. I don’t know how to engage people with a vision they don’t want, and I don’t know how to create success with a less encompassing worldview in mind. I feel imposed, uninspired and defeated on a community that has been fraying decades longer than I have been alive.

I came home for two weeks of healing and soul repair, but worry that it wasn’t enough to make me want to don my armour come Monday morning. Where’s the courage in that?

My tarot reading for the evening ended in The Star, reversed, which speaks of healing energies that cannot be felt and being afraid to open to love. The courage I need to continue holding the vision, even as it continues to wound me, needs to come from that place of healing. It’s also where others need to find the courage to hold the vision with me. If it’s the community’s vision – and I’m not sure it is – then others need to hold it with me. My whole heart needs it to be so.