— DANGER. Beyond here be dragons. —
“Shouldn’t we turn back?” begged a little voice.

The courage to continue into the unknown
comes from realizing, from seeing
that moving into the abyss
is more important than remaining in the light,
safely and in fear.

The future contains within it many dragons
so we imagine them to be:
Black-tar-slimy-poison-death,
Red-fire-blood-crimson-pain,
Blue-ghost-lonely-rainy-mist, and
Yellow-sick-fever-rotting-mold.

But it’s the imaginary dragons that are the nastiest…

What we know, all of what we know, we have seen.
And a purposeful life, a life of learning,
requires forward movement
into shadows that strangely gain illumination,
fading as we are almost upon them.
Feet falling swiftly onto ground — solid ground,
brown or grey or green,
and again we are suprised to find it not so full of darkness
as we had imagined it to be.

Beyond here be dragons?
The clearest sign of what we need to do.
Stomp out the unknown darkness.