For the Summer Solstice

“Don’t tell me about the end of the world.
Tell me about the beginning.
Befriend entropy.
Assume this exhalation is your last
and you are on the slope of a final heartbeat.

Be a wing that glides on gravity, rising
only by surrender, never quite knowing
how this melody is made from listened silences.

A thousand skies are raveled in a raindrop,
a thousand lives of wisdom in a tear,
last Summer’s light on a brittle twig
wrapped in a milky cocoon, a blue egg
waiting in its mother-swirl of sticks,
she too the shaper of galaxies.

Relax into uncertainty, into the wound
of not knowing, into the sound
of what happened before creation
in the brilliant beginning-less core
of this moment.

Come taste and see
the diamond-pointed bindhu
between the mirrors,
between the world and its beholder,
here, where what flows out
meets what flows in,
a tiny wild flower of grace
that glows only an inch or two
in front of your chest.

Don’t tell me how it ends,
tell me how it begins.
How this breath is given
because you surrendered that one.”

How It Begins by Alfred K. LaMotte

“Who can tell how lovely in June is the
honey locust tree, or why
a tree should be so sweet and live
in this world? Each white blossom
on a dangle of white flowers holds one green seed–
a new life. Also each blossom on a dangle of flower
holds a flask
of fragrance called Heaven, which is never sealed.
The bees circle the tree and dive into it. They are crazy
with gratitude. They are working like farmers. They are as
happy as saints. After awhile the flowers begin to
wilt and drop down into the grass. Welcome
shines in the grass.
Each year I gather
handfuls of blossoms and eat of their mealiness; the honey
melts in my mouth, the seeds make me strong,
both when they are crisps and ripe, and even at the end
when their petals have turned dully yellow.
So it is
if the heart has devoted itself to love, there is
not a single inch of emptiness. Gladness gleams
all the way to the grave.”

Honey Locust by Mary Oliver (1935 – 2019)

“See the flowers, so faithful to Earth.
We know their fate because we share it.
Were they to grieve for their wilting,
that grief would be ours to feel.

There’s a lightness in things. Only we move forever burdened,
pressing ourselves into everything, obsessed by weight.
How strange and devouring our ways must seem
to those for whom life is enough.

If you could enter their dreaming and dream with them deeply,
you would come back different to a different day,
moving so easily from that common depth.

Or maybe just stay there: they would bloom and welcome you,
all those brothers and sisters tossing in the meadows,
and you would be one of them.”

Sonnets to Orpheus II, 14 by Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 – 1926)

For The Feast of the Visitation

“Here is a meeting made of hidden joys,
Of lightnings cloistered in a narrow place,
From quiet hearts the sudden flame of praise
And in the womb the quickening kick of grace.
Two women on the very edge of things
Unnoticed and unknown to men of power,
But in their flesh the hidden Spirit sings
And in their lives the buds of blessing flower.
And Mary stands with all we call ‘too young’,
Elizabeth with all called ‘past their prime’.
They sing today for all the great unsung,
Women who turned eternity to time,
Favoured of heaven, outcast on the earth,
Prophets who bring the best in us to birth.”

The Visitation by Malcolm Guite

Image: Stained Glass, Germany, 1444

For Pentecost / Whit Sunday

“Life-force of God, you make the sap to rise,
the swelling of bud to burst the sheath.
May I let the fruits of your Spirit grow in me this day.
Spirit of love abide in my ears as I listen to stories different to mine own.
Spirit of joy beam in my eyes as I meet the gaze of another.
Spirit of peace breathe through my attitude.
Spirit of kindness blow through the words I speak.
Spirit of patience breeze across my frustration before I say or act.
Spirit of faithfulness guard me when I’m tempted to stray.
Spirit of generosity spill over in all I think or do or say.
Spirit of gentleness be fragrant in all my dealings with the world.
Spirit of self-control do not limit, but channel the abundance of your fruits
as I partake in your transforming ways blowing through this day.”

From The Celtic Wheel of the Year: Celtic and Christian Seasonal Prayers by Tess Ward

“Just when you seem to yourself
nothing but a flimsy web
of questions, you are given
the questions of others to hold
in the emptiness of your hands,
songbird eggs that can still hatch
if you keep them warm,
butterflies opening and closing themselves
in your cupped palms, trusting you not to injure
their scintillant fur, their dust.
You are given the questions of others
as if they were answers
to all you ask. Yes, perhaps
this gift is your answer.”

A Gift by Denise Levertov (1923 – 1997)

“The whole earth sings praise!
Wild wind whips glory,
babbling brook skipping sings,
green field davening sway.
The smallest ears pick up the tune
that pulses through all things.

Oh God, Maker of all,
let my life move with
the earth songs beneath my feet
and the star songs above my head.
Let my heart jig and caper like a young lamb.
Let my soul sing and sigh and signify.

No corner of the earth is apart from Your power.
Everywhere a woman may roam,
she will see the signs and hear the songs:
Each day a new day.
Each moment an opportunity.
Each step,
each listening step,
a step in hope’s direction.

How may I live my gratitude,
but with humble attention,
with an ear quick to listen,
gaze penetrating to see,
a heart ready to love,
hands eager to bless,
with a mind slow to judge
and probing to discern,
with feet that move
in hope’s direciton,
dancing earthstar
songs of praise.

So be it.”

Psalm 66 Redux by Carla Grosch-Miller

“Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay.
We should like to skip the intermediate stages.
We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new. And yet it is the law of all progress
That it is made by passing through some stages of instability
And that it may take a very long time.
And so I think it is with you;
Your ideas mature gradually – let them grow,
Let them shape themselves, without undue haste.
Don’t try to force them on,
As though you could be today what time
(that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will)
Will make of you tomorrow.
Only God could say what this new spirit
Gradually forming within you will be.
Give our Lord the benefit of believing
That his hand is leading you,
And accept the anxiety of feeling yourself
In suspense and incomplete.”

Teilhard de Chardin (1 May 1881 – 10 April 1955)

For Beltane

“I am the one whose praise echoes on high.
I adorn all the earth.
I am the breeze that nurtures all things green.
I encourage blossoms to flourish with ripening fruits.
I am led by the spirit to feed the purest streams.
I am the rain coming from the dew
that causes the grasses to laugh with the joy of life.
I call forth tears, the aroma of holy work.
I am the yearning for good.”

Hildegard von Bingen (1098 – 1179)

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 truth
of our interdependence and we must learn how to do the same. We must sink down into the structures of our cells to find what was embedded by generations of those who stood in the dignity of their rightful place as stewards of the earth. When the hush of a woodland’s silence raises the hairs on our necks, or we feel an expansiveness arise in our heart-space when standing on the precipice of a cliff or canyon or mountainside and breathe deep, we can touch that remembering. The salt that gathers on our skin, the tears we shed, the breath that flows across our lips are all manifestations of how profoundly we are connected. The earth dwells in the water that steadies our cells and in the marrow that runs through our bones. Our interconnection was known to our ancestors, and it is our duty to remember this now. We must seek to become intimate with what is indiscrete and divine, for the sake of this planet, our only home.”

From Unearthed: On Race and Roots, and How the Soil Taught Me I Belong by Claire Ratinon