“Dance when you’re broken open. Dance when you’ve torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you’re perfectly free. Struck, the dancer hears a tambourine inside her, like a wave that crests into foam at the very top, Begins. Maybe you don’t hear that tambourine, or the tree leaves clapping time. Close the ears on your head, that listen mostly to lies and cynical jokes. There are other things to see, and hear. Music. Dance. A brilliant city inside your Soul!”
Let the growing sunlight of each new day touch your soul. May it reach the parts you that have felt unloved, unseen. The dark places between your bones, the cave around your heart, the space between each breath. Let it stir the dreams in you, the seeds of medicine sown into your making, activating their shape shifting ways. All of you is worthy of this light; your flesh, your skin, your womb, your heart. Let it’s magic call you home, let your wildness reply with its own slow and gentle awakening.
“I will rest now at the bottom of Bridget’s well I will follow the crow’s way Footprint by footprint In the mud down here I won’t come up Until I am calmed down And the earth dries beneath me And I have paced the caked ground Until smooth all over It can echo a deeper voice Mirror a longer shadow Then the fire may come again Beneath me, this time Rising beyond me No narcissus-flinted spark Behind closed eyes But a burning bush A fire that always burns away But never is burnt out”
“Only when peace lives within each of us, will it live outside of us. We must be the wombs for a new harmony. When it is small, peace is fragile. Like a baby, it needs nurturing attention. We must protect peace from violence and perversion if it is to grow. We must be strong to do this. But force, even in the name of honour, is always tragic. Instead, we must use the strength of wisdom and conscience. Only that power can nurture peace in this difficult time.”
“For the survivor who chooses to testify, it is clear: his duty is to bear witness for the dead and for the living. He has no right to deprive future generations of a past that belongs to our collective memory. To forget would be not only dangerous but offensive; to forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time.”
“We live under the power of Modern Consciousness, which means that we are obsessed with progress. Wherever you are is not good enough. We always want to achieve something, rather than experience something. The opposite of this is Spiritual Consciousness. By that I mean you find enchantment in every action you do, rather in just the results of your action. Spiritual Consciousness is not a particular religion but a way of being.”
To A Mouse by Robert Burns, born on this day in 1759,
“Wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beastie, O, what a panic’s in thy breastie! Thou need na start awa sae hasty, Wi’ bickerin brattle! I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee Wi’ murd’ring pattle!
I’m truly sorry Man’s dominion Has broken Nature’s social union, An’ justifies that ill opinion, Which makes thee startle, At me, thy poor, earth-born companion, An’ fellow-mortal!
I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve; What then? poor beastie, thou maun live! A daimen-icker in a thrave ’S a sma’ request: I’ll get a blessin wi’ the lave, An’ never miss ’t!
Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin! It’s silly wa’s the win’s are strewin! An’ naething, now, to big a new ane, O’ foggage green! An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin, Baith snell an’ keen!
Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste, An’ weary Winter comin fast, An’ cozie here, beneath the blast, Thou thought to dwell, Till crash! the cruel coulter past Out thro’ thy cell.
That wee-bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble Has cost thee monie a weary nibble! Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble, But house or hald, To thole the Winter’s sleety dribble, An’ cranreuch cauld!
But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane, In proving foresight may be vain: The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men Gang aft agley, An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, For promis’d joy!
Still, thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me! The present only toucheth thee: But Och! I backward cast my e’e, On prospects drear! An’ forward tho’ I canna see, I guess an’ fear!”
Chorlton Unitarians 