"Fear is a very powerful emotion. When you feel fear in your body, it's helpful to relate to it as an energy that can be mobilized for life. It may feel like a constriction in your chest, throat, or abdomen. Breathe through it without judgment and allow yourself to feel it as a very strong force. If you pray for help, you can begin to expand this energy we call 'fear' and use it for healing and transformation. . . .

"Our only protection is in our interconnectedness. This has always been the message of the dark emotions when they are experienced most deeply and widely. Grief is not just 'my' grief; it is the grief of every motherless child, every witness to horror in the world. Despair is not just 'my' despair; it is everyone's despair about life in the twenty-first century. Fear is not just 'my' fear; it is everyone's fear — of anthrax, of nuclear war, of truck bombs, of airplane jackings, of things falling apart, blowing up, sickening and dying.

"If fear is only telling you to save your own skin, there's not much hope for us. But the fact is that in conscious fear, there is a potentially revolutionary power of compassion and connection that can be mobilized en masse. This is the power of fear. Our collective fear, which is intelligent, is telling us now: Find new ways to keep this global village safe. Find new forms of international cooperation that will root out evil in ways that don't create more victims and more evil. Leap out of the confines of national egos. Learn the ways of peace. Find a new ceremony of safety so that not just you and I but all of us can live together without fear.

"This will take all of our creative power and ingenuity, as much and more as the intelligence and power we have put into constructing smart bombs and nuclear warheads."