blessings

john o'donohue is someone i would have liked to meet.  fortunately, we have many friends available in and through books:  timeless relationships that can help connect us to one another, ourselves, and the great beyond.

his collection to bless the space between us, has something for when words fail.  

sometimes, when dear friends are bereft, i snap a photo of one of his blessings "on death of the beloved" or recently the blessing he wrote for loved ones of a suicide.

there are lighthearted blessings of celebration and new beginnings as well.   

my personality tends to play hot potato with good things--i am quick to capture a heart and send it as an encouragement or hear a song and immediately send it forward.  that's all well and good but sometimes i need to just sit with something for myself and allow it to settle in and become part of me.  

it was a revelation to me that i could bless myself!

this stanza really stood out to me this week to me for me:

"on this echoing-day of your birth,

may you open the gift of solitude

in order to receive your own soul;

enter the generosity of silence

to hear your hidden heart;

know the serenity of stillness

to be enfolded anew

by the miracle of your being."

how might you bless yourself this week?