All Souls’ Day

“As we slowly tread towards winter,
let us learn how to befriend darkness.
May we find our way in the night and welcome the shapes we see.
Let us honour the voices of our ancestors,
and the faces of friends lost through death or conflict.
May we hear their whispers of wisdom,
of laughter and of love.
May their courage to live life fully
provide energy for our dance on the edge of fear.”

John Harley, Unitarian minister, quoted in Fragments of Holiness for Daily Reflection

All Saints’ Day

“My life is made worthwhile by fighting bravely on
for those ideals I hold most great and holy.
Though evil winds may blow, they will not rock the calm
in my soul, which remains both quiet and lowly.
For heaven waits for those whose spirits have won through,
but I am sure that my life was worth living.
And they will find the sun whose minds have let them rise
and stand against the darkness and the mayhem.
I might be disappointed, I might fall in the fight,
but I am sure that my life was worth living.
The life which is to come has been my holy shrine,
I trust that I have lived a life worth giving.”

My Life Is Made Worthwhile: a hymn written by Norbert Fabian Čapek on March 31 1942 at the concentration camp in Dachau, Germany. Norbert was a Unitarian minister who founded the Unitarian church in Prague and was executed by the Nazis for treason.

Samhain / Halloween

“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,
Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft
The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.”

To Autumn by John Keats, born on this day in 1795

“Wherever we have set our roots, there will we grow. The ability to be flexible and adaptable to different growing conditions determines the nature of our development. Learning to change and adapt with each new circumstance is a human gift that we share with all life. Evolution itself shows us that those species that cannot change die out. Opinions and attitudes can become like carapaces that harden about our shoulders, bringing rigidity to our life-flow. Rigidity of opinion causes us to become approachable, which may increase our sense of isolation or confirm us in our self-contented stasis. We begin to lose opportunities to exchange views, to receive love, to find other sources of nurture. It takes courage to allow children to swarm in our branches, to allow the questions and opinions of those younger than ourselves to bend our trunks in their fresh breeze. The beauty of many-levelled generations alive at one time allows us great opportunities to practice our flexibility and share our wisdom.”

Caitlin Matthews

International Day of Care and Support

“When a mother lives in the street
and sleeps on the pavement
in front of your brownstone
you need many laws
to keep you safe.
They all say the same thing,
“Stay away.”
But when you invite her inside,
you recognize, indeed,
she is your mother,
the one who brings this breath.
She sits down by the hearth
where your grief is burning
and you give her something warm to sip
from the old iron cauldron
you’ve carefully kept from
beating too hard, like your heart.
You notice, indeed,
there are many cracks in it now.
And you remember, it was she
who gave you this bowl,
just as her mother gave it to her.
Then you discover
the only one law is required,
the one that says to every stranger,
“Welcome home.””

One Law by Alfred Lamotte

“To separate between physical needs and spiritual needs is both counterproductive and futile. The spiritual breathes life into the physical and the physical rises to become spiritual in a perpetual chemistry of exchange. Heal the soul and the body is renewed. Heal the body and the soul is empowered.”

Rabbi Tzvi Freeman

William Blake

“The hardest thing, I think, is to live richly in the present, without letting it be tainted and spoiled out of fear for the future or regret for a badly-managed past…

I want to taste and glory in each day, and never be afraid to experience pain; and never shut myself up in a numb core of nonfeeling, or stop questioning and criticizing life and take the easy way out. To learn and think: to think and live; to live and learn: this always, with new insight, new understanding, and new love.”

Sylvia Plath, poet and Unitarian Universalist, born on this day in 1932

“This song of mine will wind its music around you,
my child, like the fond arms of love.
The song of mine will touch your forehead
like a kiss of blessing.
When you are alone it will sit by your side and
whisper in your ear, when you are in the crowd
it will fence you about with aloofness.
My song will be like a pair of wings to your dreams,
it will transport your heart to the verge of the unknown.
It will be like the faithful star overhead
when dark night is over your road.
My song will sit in the pupils of your eyes,
and will carry your sight into the heart of things.
And when my voice is silenced in death,
my song will speak in your living heart.”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861 – 1941)

“When in the fullness of its time
this creation wilts,
its vigour returns to its own source.
This is the underlying natural law.
When the elements of the world fulfil their function,
they come to ripeness
and their fruit is gathered back to God.
Now these things are in reference to the soul’s life:
spiritual vitality is alive in the soul
in the same way as the marrow of the hips in the flesh.
Out of the soul in good standing,
the vigour of the virtues flows out
as do the elements of creation,
it flows back in the same capacity
in attentive prayer.”

Hildegard von Bingen (1098 – 1179)

“In myths and fairy tales, deities and other great spirits test the hearts of humans by showing up in various forms that disguise their divinity. They show up in robes, rags, silver sashes, or with muddy feet. They show up with skin dark as old wood, or in scales made of rose petal, as a frail child, as a lime-yellow old woman, as a man who cannot speak, or as an animal who can. The great powers are testing to see if humans have yet learned to recognize the greatness of soul in all its varying forms.”

Clarissa Pinkola Estés