Words: “Where Human Beings Grow Human Souls …”

Where do we find our courage, our strength, our resiliency, our compassion…

Ursula K. Le Guin explained in her Mills College Commencement address, 1983 (excerpt):

“Because you are human beings you are going to meet failure. You are going to meet disappointment, injustice, betrayal, and irreparable loss. You will find you’re weak where you thought yourself strong. You’ll work for possessions and then find they possess you. You will find yourself — as I know you already have — in dark places, alone, and afraid.

… And when you fail, and are defeated, and in pain, and in the dark, then I hope you will remember that darkness is your country, where you live, where no wars are fought and no wars are won, but where the future is.

Our roots are in the dark; the earth is our country. Why did we look up for blessing — instead of around, and down? What hope we have lies there…  Not in the light that blinds, but in the dark that nourishes, where human beings grow human souls.”

~~ Ursula K. Le Guin, A Left-Handed Commencement Address, May 22 1983, Mills College, Oakland, California

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URSULA K. LE GUIN
(aka Ursula Kroeber)
(1929 –

Wife, mother, grandmother
American novelist, sci-fi & fantasy writer,
Teacher, poet, lecturer
Environmentalist

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