"I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
Frank Herbert--Dune
When in my twenties, I carried this litany from Dune in my wallet. Faced with living alone for the first time in a new place while attending college, my personal anxieties dogged me. On bad days while riding the shuttle to early morning classes, I would whisper these words. When I worried that I wasn’t as smart as everyone else thought, this recitation calmed my soul.
When in my thirties, I carried this litany (now worn and faded) as solace whenever I felt I failed as a wife, mother, daughter or sister. The dread of not measuring up to the expectations of my principals or peers wrapped me into doubts that eased if I chanted this invocation.
When in my forties, my father died. The world tilted. I faced one of my worst fears and survived. Somehow, carrying the little scrap of paper seem unnecessary. The words, permanently etched in memory, offered comfort and soothed my grief.
When in my fifties, my life narrowed down into the nightmares of my mother’s Huntington’s disease. Every day filled with uncertainties as I dealt with the horrific symptoms of this disorder. To be honest, I hid from many of my fears. I wasted energy running away from them. I forgot the power of permitting them “to pass over me and through me.”
Now I begin my sixties. And I need to carry these assurances with me once again. I’m printing them out on a crisply new piece of paper and folding them into my wallet. Although committed to memory forty years ago, I need them to be concretely within my grasp. I face a different challenge today as a madman dictates our political reality. I must not let his mental illness paralyze my ability to reason and resist.
Copyright 2018 Elizabeth Abrams Chapman
