Author Archives: Laura Dobson

For Earth Day “The trees breathe for you, the bees buzz for you, the mycelium burrows deep into the soil for you. Our ancestors knew how to live in accordance with the truthof our interdependence and we must learn how to do the same. We must sink down into the structures of our cells toContinue reading “Words for week beginning Monday 20th April”

“Splendors of the spring world,uplift me.Peonies, you slow-motion fireworks,beguile me.Sunday sky, the color of a newborn’s eyes,regard me.Starry night, the color of opals strewn across rain-soaked earth,enchant me.Fields of spring, sweetening the air,calm me.Glory of iris, pulsing in my pupil like the warm blood in my wrist,astound me.All you realities of the spring world,call toContinue reading “Words for week beginning Monday 13th April”

For Easter “Easter. The grave clothes of winterare still here, but the sepulchreis empty. A messengerfrom the tomb tells ushow a stone has been rolledfrom the mind, and a tree lightensthe darkness with its blossom.There are travellers upon the roadwho have heard music blownfrom a bare bough, and a childtells us how the accidentof lastContinue reading “Words for week beginning Monday 6th April”

For Holy Week “The standard of Love is a high one.We all rebel, and some are clueless.They are not just or generous or truthfulThey spend their time plotting to get ahead;they plunder the world and do not share.I hate this—but I am not innocent. Though I try to share,to be just and frugal,most of theContinue reading “Words for week beginning Monday 30th March”

For Lady Day, 25 March “Even if I don’t see it again—nor ever feel itI know it is—and that if once it hailed meit ever does—And so it is myself I want to turn in that directionnot as towards a place, but it was a tiltingwithin myself,as one turns a mirror to flash the lightContinue reading “Words for week beginning Monday 23rd March”

For the Vernal Equinox “O Sacred Balance, poised at true,in this season when night and day are equal,by moonlight and sunlight,come with your holy searchlightas I survey the different calls on my life.Be in my discernment of time as I go between world and home today.Help me to discover my needfor busyness and rest,for solitudeContinue reading “Words for week beginning Monday 16th March”

“I’ve found something so rare,So miraculous,No-one can assessHow much it is worth. It is colourless and One;It is eternal and indivisible;The waves of change never break over it;It fills every vessel. It has no weight; it has no price;No-one can ever measure it;No-one can count it;It cannot be knownThrough talk or erudition.It isn’t heavy andContinue reading “Words for week beginning Monday 9th March”

For International Women’s Day “Now I become myself. It’s takenTime, many years and places;I have been dissolved and shaken,Worn other people’s faces,Run madly, as if Time were there,Terribly old, crying a warning,“Hurry, you will be dead before—”(What? Before you reach the morning?Or the end of the poem is clear?Or love safe in the walled city?)NowContinue reading “Words for week beginning Monday 2nd March”

For Lent “To receive this blessing,all you have to dois let your heart break.Let it crack open.Let it fall apartso you can seeits secret chambers,the hidden spaceswhere you have hesitatedto go. Your entire lifeis here, inscribed wholeupon your heart’s walls:every path takenor left behind,every face you turned towardor turned away,every word spoken in loveor inContinue reading “Words for week beginning Monday 23rd February”

Ramadan begins “The wakened lover speaks directly to the beloved,“You are the sky my spirit circles in,the love inside love,the resurrection-place. Let this window be your ear.I have lost consciousness many timeswith longing for your listening silence,and your life-quickening smile. You give attention to the smallest matters,my suspicious doubts, and to the greatest. You knowContinue reading “Words for week beginning Monday 16th February”