2018 Blessing Bowl Archives

1/1/2018

…It is not strange though it is mysterious that our “New Year” comes at the darkest time in the seasonal cycle. When there is personal darkness, where there is pain to overcome, when we are forced to renew ourselves against all the odds, the psychic energy required simply to survive has tremendous force, as great as that of a bulb pushing up through the icy ground in spring, so after the overcoming, there is extra energy, a flood of energy that can go into creation.

May Sarton 1912-1995

1/31/2018

Blue moons bookend January. Two full moons in one month. Auspicious and daunting or momentous and uplifting?

In our frailty it is easy to drift toward the daunting. “Only the healthy find relief in heavenly arrays,” we bemoan. “I am in too much pain.” Perhaps even too much pain to go outside and look up.

In our frailty, let’s look in to deep darkness and dare to keep looking until we find a flicker to redirect our gaze upward. The blue moons are not either daunting or uplifting. They are both and. As is our pain.

 

3/1/18

A full moon ushers in March. Celestial energy touches Earth’s.

“The gift the universe gives is a perspective on relationship. It sings to us of kinship with life-giving energy extending the length and breadth of space that has no limitations and is welcoming of all. The universe is trying to tell us that we need to replicate this spirit in relationships of our own.” Miriam Therese Winter Paradoxology p.165

May 2018

from Thomas Merton

The reality that is present to us and in us:

Call it Being...Silence.

And the simple fact that by being attentive,

by learning to listen

(or recovering the natural capacity to listen)

we can find ourselves engulfed in such happiness that it cannot be explained:

the happiness of being at one with everything

in that hidden ground of Love

for which there can be no explanations...

May we all grow in grace and peace,

and not neglect the silence that is printed

in the center of our being.

It will not fail us.

September 2018
Equinox 

Earth, ourselves,

breathe and awaken,

leaves are stirring,
all things moving,

new day coming,
life renewing.

Pawnee prayer in Prayers for Healing edited by Maggie Oman

September 22, 2018
This equinox marks the beginning of my gap year. You can have some cerebral playtime with that one if you treat GAP as an acronym. Getting Adequate Practice is one of my favorites so far, along with Granting Abundant Peace. Giving…

It takes time to take care. The blessing bowl is a centering place to gather moments dedicated to healing. It is one expression of vitality in a world dizzied with pain. Rest beckons. I am floating with you all tonight.

Blessings

 
October 7, 2018

This container garden is not far from our gravel road. I hope people driving by all summer have glanced and chuckled. It makes me grin every time I see it. Fall brings its transformations but the marigolds show no sign of weakening. The remaining tall sunflowers, long dead, make the bathtub a double mast schooner pressing on through bergs of blossoms, her flag furling at the stern. Last Sunday I named her the HMS Marigold. Turns out it was the day my cousin, with detailed and deliberate preparation, sailed unescorted to another shore.

If you are sailing solo now, or providing tug boat assistance to a larger vessel, or simply afloat in waiting wonder, stay alert to marigolds. And rest with this wisdom from John O’Donahue, excerpted from To Bless the Space Between Us.
 

“May you be given some inkling
That there could be something else at work
And that what to you now seems
Dark, destructive, and forlorn
Might be a destiny that looks different
From inside the eternal script."

 


10/25/2018

 

On my way to the heart of God

By Peter Traben Haas

Lord of the Seasons:

I await the revealing of barren branches and windy November nights. I feel life changing around me. I feel it in my body. Like the earth, I too am in transition: a pilgrim on my way to your heart.

I encounter sickness and am humbled; yet healing is provided.

I walk through depression and feel overwhelmed; yet new thinking emerges.

Beyond this earth there is still more of you and your creation.

Beyond all my troubles and disappointments, you are, and all is well.

Lifted up into the silent mystery of my heart unveiled to your unyielding love, I journey onward in prayer through all the seasons of life’s earthly passage.

12/23/2018

May God surprise you

As axal rotation spins into both the solstice and the biggest retail holiday, I wonder what awaits the planet. On Tuesday this week my spiritual director told me this story. She was visiting a home for veterans and encountered a grouchy resident. “Merry Christmas,” she said to him.

“I don’t do Christmas anymore,” he replied.

She opened the lapels of her winter coat, gave a small gentle tug on her clerical collar, and said, “May God surprise you this Christmas.”

Two days later I watched my dog insert himself between two bickering employees at another care center. Their tension and bitterness melted away instantly. It was almost as if Tobey had made a gentle tug on his clerical collar.

The next day while distributing evergreen cheer to folks who did not expect to see me, I thought, “May God surprise me this Christmas.”

Indeed, on my way home, our neighbor called to confirm her decision to euthanize her horse. So on solstice night I began energy treatments on both the fatally ill horse and the one who will remain. Three times daily round the clock, a bit like a collar, either in their barn, or in surrogate shown here.  The vet will come to release them at 1 PM on 12/24.

May God surprise you this Christmas.