Tag: Meditation

Blessing of Breathing

BLESSING OF BREATHING

That the first breath
will come without fear.

That the second breath
will come without pain.

The third breath:
that it will come without despair.

And the fourth,
without anxiety.

That the fifth breath
will come with no bitterness.

That the sixth breath
will come for joy.

Breath seven:
that it will come for love.

May the eighth breath
come for freedom.

And the ninth,
for delight.

When the tenth breath comes,
may it be for us
to breathe together,
and the next,
and the next,

until our breathing
is as one,
until our breathing
is no more.

– Jan Richardson –
The Cure for Sorrow: A Book of Blessings for Times of Grief

Last Saturday I skipped my weekly river valley camino to attend “Into a Sanctuary of Women,” an online retreat with Jan Richardson. Familiar with her work as a spiritually oriented author, artist and poet, whose words have a particular resonance for women, I welcomed the opportunity to experience her live. The gifts of her presence and her work are akin to another of my inspirational favourite women, Christine Valters Paintner, the online abbess of Abbey of the Arts, a space for, as she names us, contemplative, creative dancing monks. 

Framed by the contents of her book of the same title, Jan used her art to underscore aspects of sanctuary – its components and meanings (refuge, hospitality, making welcome, safety, spaciousness, invitation for transformation), how to make and be sanctuary for ourselves and for others, and its personal gifts and challenges. Her poetry, by form of blessing, became pause and punctuation points. This one, seen earlier in the week on her social media page, was offered to help us settle into the sacred space being created by the hundred plus of us who gathered.

Transcribing it here, now, I imagine reading it quietly as I sit in the morning. I can feel it bringing a solid, soothing start to my day. I envision it reminding me of my life’s inevitable passage, through its eldering landscape to my own passing on. And I know again my kindredness with you, breathing as one, until no more.

Much love and kindest regards, dear friends.

And so it goes…


MEDITATION

Meditation I was sitting cross-legged one morning
in our sunny new meditation room
wondering if it would be okay
to invite our out-of-town guest
to Frank’s dinner party next weekend
when it occurred to me that I wasn’t really meditating at all.

In fact, I had never meditated in our sunny new meditation room.
I had just sat cross-legged now and then for 15 or 20 minutes
worrying about one thing or another,
how the world will endor what to get Alice for her birthday.

It would make more sense to rename the meditation room
our new exercise room
and to replace all the candles,
incense holders, and the little statues
with two ten-pound hand weights
and a towel in case I broke a sweat.

Then I pictured the new room
with nothing in it but a folded white towel,
and a pair of numbered hand weights –an image of such simplicity
that the sustaining of it
as I sat cross-legged under a tall window,
my palms open weightlessly on my bare knees,

made me wonder if I wasn’t actually,
meditating for a moment then and therein our former meditation room,
where the sun seemed to be brightening as it suffused with light the grain
in the planks of that room’s gleaming floor.

– Billy Collins –
The Rain in Portugal