Dear All,
Greetings to everyone! We do hope you have had a good month as we tip from August into September and lurch daily between summer & autumn. I find myself clinging onto summer in hope of a few more weeks of the more relaxed time but, practically, I find myself nudged into the new season. Today’s attachments reflect that transition – beginnings, endings, farewells, the tipping of the scales as we move on – literally & in our lives.
The blessing is Marty Haugen’s ‘The Hand of God’ –
Love to you all
For a New Beginning
John O’Donohue
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.
For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.
It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.
Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.
Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.
Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.
Goodbye to Summer
Impermanence, transformation,
seasonal changes, goodbyes.
Call it by whatever name,
it’s bound to leave a crusty mark
on my reluctant spirit.
The time has come to end
my light-filled summertime
when I floated on emerald wings.
Now I stand here by the patio door
looking out at near-naked trees.
I take a deep breath, give a sigh
of resignation, gather my precious
remembrance of those succulent months
while my memory takes one last, grateful look
at summer’s dewy dawns.
Little Summer
Mary Oliver
Every summer
I listen and look
under the sun’s brass and even
in the moonlight, but I can’t hear
anything, I can’t see anything—
not the pale roots digging down,
nor the green stalks muscling up,
nor the leaves
deepening their damp pleats,
nor the tassels making,
nor the shucks, nor the cobs.
And still,
every day,
the leafy fields
grow taller and thicker—
green gowns lifting up in the night,
showered with silk.
And so, every summer,
I fail as a witness, seeing nothing—
I am deaf too
to the tick of the leaves,
the tapping of downwardness from the banyan feet—
all of it
happening
beyond all seeable proof, or hearable hum.
And, therefore, let the immeasurable come.
Let the unknowable touch the buckle of my spine.
Let the wind turn in the trees,
and the mystery hidden in dirt
swing through the air.
How could I look at anything in this world
and tremble, and grip my hands over my heart?
What should I fear?
One morning
in the leafy green ocean
the honeycomb of the corn’s beautiful body
is sure to be there.
Summer’s End
Joyce Rupp
Gatherer of All,
like sunflowers whose life will be ended
when the combine comes to harvest them,
I will give my life over to you with trust
when you come for me in the hour of death.
All that my life has brought to fruition
will be left for future generations.
I bring what remains to be matured
and entrust this into your welcoming hands.
Thank for faithfully guiding me
through the seasons of my life with you.