I will not die an unlived life

I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire.

I choose to inhabit my days,

to allow my living to open me,

to make me less afraid, more accessible,

to loosen my heart until it becomes

a wing, a torch, a promise.

I choose to risk my significance;

to live so that which came to me

as seed goes to the next as blossom,

and that which came to me as blossom

goes on as fruit.

Dawna Markova, The Open Mind: The 6 Patterns of Natural Intelligence , p. 187 (Conari Press, 1996).