Heron Dance didn’t make enough money to support me
Or even pay its bills
For five long years
Not fun.

I haven’t always had the patience I should
With my projects, with others, with myself
But I did with Heron Dance
And from that flowed a stream of blessings.

Faith isn’t easy
Faith in yourself
Faith in the value of unique work
The work you love.

Waiting requires humility.
Sometimes I’m humble, patient,
Sometimes I’m not.

I’ve learned that there are deep rewards in life
In the projects with which you are willing
To be patient.

I lose my confidence sometimes, and that's where the courage part comes in. I'm only halfway self-confident. . . If you have determination, you're going to use that determination to take the place of confidence.
      I was always willing to undergo hardship or whatever it took to be able to stay with my work. I could have quit many times -- given up, because it is no great art in life to be poor and hungry, and that's what I was.
     - Erskine Caldwell, novelist, author of Tobacco Road and God's Little Acre, as well as a number of other books. Despite rejection and even scorn early in his writing career, his books ultimately went on to sell tens of millions of copies.

In the end however, determination may not be enough. You’ll need to create or have some kind of a feedback loop that involves deep satisfaction and joy. You’ll need an inner sense that what you are doing is right. That inner sigh of relief.  That’s how you know that you are on the right track. You need to create a circle of giving and receiving.

 When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.
-Harriet Beecher Stowe

Do not let the fact that things are not made for you, that conditions are not as they should be, stop you. Go on anyway. Everything depends on those who go on anyway.
      - Robert Henri, from The Art Spirit

 Everyone has talent. What is rare is the courage to follow that talent to the dark place where it leads.
- Erica Jong

It may seem difficult at first, but everything is difficult at first.
- Miyamoto Musashi

There are some things you can’t learn from others. You have to pass through the fire.
- Norman Douglas

Staying with our bliss, our calling, over the long haul has in fact brought me and Vivian our happiness. And that means staying with it in times of unhappiness. Riding out the storms, the times of bewilderment, and hanging on and staying with it. Coming through those periods there is a confirmation, and that inner confirmation brings the happiness that makes it all feel worthwhile.
      When you stay with it and move through the seasons, you learn spring follows winter. It will happen. And it will probably happen in a way that you will have forgotten how beautiful it is.
      - Fritz Hull, co-founder of the Whidbey Institute, Heron Dance interview.

Have patience with all things but first of all with yourself. 
- Francis de Sales