No Cowardly Lions Here

This guy is no Cowardly Lion! He’s fierce and fabulous! I sense a theme emerging in my posts here: Courage! This golden beast guards the top of the Massachusetts building at the Big E in West Springfield, Massachusetts. I captured him digitally a couple of weeks ago, then manipulated the image in PhotoShop Elements and iPhoto. Over the last few days I’ve kept him on my computer’s desktop as a kind of talisman. A visual reminder of the Thoreau quote at the foot of this blog page: “"Nothing is so much to be feared as fear."

Once upon a time, not all that long ago, I lived with far too much fear. The kind of heightened awareness that leaves one jumpy and jittery from the tiniest provocation. Now most of the real life basis of that fear is gone. But I find that when I do feel fear stirring in my gut, it takes concentrated effort to keep all the old fears from rushing back in. Apparently the old fears are quick to employ Dorothy’s mantra: “There’s no place like home!”. But here in real life there is no wizard to seek out, no man behind the curtain to be revealed. The courage is in my heart. I’ve had it all along....