I receive the blessings of May
• Thundering rainstorms healing the cracks in the dry ground
• An unexpected cool spell following unseasonal heat – both reminding me that, thankfully, my sphere of control is limited and the choice to respond is where my heart can find peace
• A four-generation picnic, with cascading delight, heart to heart to heart
I offer this blessing in response
• May this very moment whisper life into your heart as you stop to take a breath – in and out – and find that there is time enough for gratitude, even today
[Photo by Ian Sanderson on flickr per cc 2.0]
I am sitting deep within the cave of my heart. It is dark. I glance around myself and see the dim edges of rocks and tunnels. I think I should be scared but I am not. It is so deeply quiet here, so still.
I am sitting on a small ledge that overhangs a pool of still water. It lends a dampness to the cavern that touches my skin and coats the inside of my lungs as I breathe slowly in and out. I stretch my legs and lean back a bit on my arms and listen and wait.
I am waiting for you. For your deep whisper in my heart. For the promise of your own heartbeat within me.
I have forgotten how to seek you, how to wait for you, how to trust your coming. Yet somehow, even after so long away, I trust your coming.
It is not my conjuring or my protocols or rituals that call you forth. It is the shape of how things are, of who you are. It is the very shape of life itself that brings me to you – for that is the truth of it. It is not so much that you must come to me. You are here. Always. At the very center of all that is. How could it be otherwise since you are life itself?
How then can I lose you? How can I live without noticing your heartbeat? How can I let myself be so distracted by the scurry and cries and bustle around me that I forget your unshakable love?
And yet I do forget. And though my own heart blames me for such neglect, your heart surrounds me with welcome. You don’t want our time together to be swallowed by focus on my failures. You simply want to love me and for me to receive and return that love.
After some moments of repentance – which I see as a required penance, but you see as simply clearing space – I let go all the chatter of my soul. I simply breathe, in and out. I count to five, each breath a bit deeper and slower than the last, and I slip into the pool. I float, suspended in the water. Even if I momentarily sink beneath the surface I can still breathe deeply. The pool is liquid grace. I take it in with grateful ease. It fills each cell. I am awash with life, with love … with you.
I receive the blessings of April
• The geese in my neighbor’s pond, mother patiently upon the nest, father faithfully patrolling nearby
• The joy of children dancing, emersed in the music and the sheer delight of movement
• The soft nod of my mother, watching my granddaughters at play
• The unconquerable spirit of spring, pushing itself up through the ground and out through each tiny branch
I offer this blessing in response
• May the spirit of love, which is life itself, rise in your heart and extend itself through your fingers to bless the earth around you
Quiet Hope 