Advent again...grateful for this season...grateful that there continue to be words that sustain...grateful for the poets and artists and thoughtful humans who capture their feelings and words...the journey continues - broken...blessed...given... in this journey of life, the journey of being human...(photos from my recent UK trip)
11/28
FOR THE TRAVELER
When you travel,
A new silence
Goes with you,
And if you listen,
You will hear
What your heart would
Love to say.
A journey can become a sacred thing:
Make sure, before you go,
To take time
To bless your going forth,
To free your heart of ballast
So that the compass of your soul
Might direct you toward
The territories of spirit
Where you will discover
More of your hidden life,
And the urgencies
That deserve to claim you.
- John O'Donohue
Excerpt from the blessing, 'For the Traveler'
BENEDICTUS (Europe) /
TO BLESS THE SPACE BETWEEN US (US)
When you travel,
A new silence
Goes with you,
And if you listen,
You will hear
What your heart would
Love to say.
A journey can become a sacred thing:
Make sure, before you go,
To take time
To bless your going forth,
To free your heart of ballast
So that the compass of your soul
Might direct you toward
The territories of spirit
Where you will discover
More of your hidden life,
And the urgencies
That deserve to claim you.
- John O'Donohue
Excerpt from the blessing, 'For the Traveler'
BENEDICTUS (Europe) /
TO BLESS THE SPACE BETWEEN US (US)
 |
| South West Coast Path above Branscombe Beach, Devon |
11/29
At any time you can ask yourself: At which threshold am I now standing? At this time in my life, what am I leaving? Where am I about to enter? What is preventing me from crossing my next threshold? What gift would enable me to do it? A threshold is not a simple boundary; it is a frontier that divides two different territories, rhythms and atmospheres. Indeed, it is a lovely testimony to the fullness and integrity of an experience or a stage of life that it intensifies toward the end into a real frontier that cannot be crossed without the heart being passionately engaged and woken up. At this threshold a great complexity of emotions comes alive: confusion, fear, excitement, sadness, hope. This is one of the reasons such vital crossing were always clothed in ritual. It is wise in your own life to be able to recognize and acknowledge the key thresholds; to take your time; to feel all the varieties of presence that accrue there; to listen inward with complete attention until you hear the inner voice calling you forward. The time has come to cross.
From To Bless the Space Between Us, John O’Donohue longer excerpt here: https://sarasmeaton.com/
You never really know where life will lead you, but if you live with pure intention and feed what you love with all your might, consistently and honestly...you might find yourself in places you'd never dreamed you'd go. - Laura Munson
 |
| Exeter |
12/1
For all those who are walking in grief, who have lost so much, whether the pain and ache is current and acute or distant but still tender.
Solace is not an evasion, nor a cure for our suffering, nor a made up state of mind. Solace is a direct seeing and participation; a celebration of the beautiful coming and going, appearance and disappearance of which we have always been a part. Solace is not meant to be an answer, but an invitation, through the door of pain and difficulty, to the depth of suffering and simultaneous beauty in the world that the strategic mind by itself cannot grasp nor make sense of.
This long and lonely path
That I walk upon
Is full of mystery
And hope, that one day
I shall find my way home
- Athey Thompson
Solace is not an evasion, nor a cure for our suffering, nor a made up state of mind. Solace is a direct seeing and participation; a celebration of the beautiful coming and going, appearance and disappearance of which we have always been a part. Solace is not meant to be an answer, but an invitation, through the door of pain and difficulty, to the depth of suffering and simultaneous beauty in the world that the strategic mind by itself cannot grasp nor make sense of.
- David Whyte
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