Salutation to the DawnLook to this Day!
For it is Life, the very Life of Life.
In it’s brief course lie
All the Verities and Realities
Of your Existence:
The Bliss of Growth,
The Glory of Action,
The Splendor of Beauty.
For Yesterday is but a Dream
And Tomorrow if only a Vision:
But Today, well lived, makes
Every Yesterday a Dream of Happiness,
And every Tomorrow a Vision of Hope
Look well, therefore, to this Day!
From the Sanskrit
Quilt of the 'altar' made by Judy D
For Retirement
This is where your life has arrived,
After all the years of effort and toil;
Look back with graciousness and thanks
On all your great and quiet achievements.
You stand on the shore of new invitation
To open your life to what is left undone;
Let your heart enjoy a different rhythm
When drawn to the wonder of other horizons.
Have the courage for a new approach to time;
Allow it to slow until you find freedom
To draw alongside the mystery you hold
And befriend your own beauty of soul.
Now is the time to enjoy your heart’s desire,
To live the dreams you’ve waited for,
To awaken the depths beyond your work
And enter into your infinite source.
John O’Donohue
To Bless the Space Between Us
Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1178)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lingua_Ignota This is the web site about her 'Mystical Writing"
Instruments of God
A small, wooden flute,
an empty, hollow reed,
rests in her silent hand.
it awaits the breath
of one who creates song
through its open form.
my often empty life
rests in the hand of God;
like the hollowed flute,
it yearns for the melody
which only Breath can give.
the small, wooden flute and I,
we need the one who breathes,
we await one who makes melody.
and the one whose touch creates,
awaits our empty, ordinary forms,
so that the song-starved world
may be fed with golden melodies.
Sr. Joyce Rupp
May I Have This Dance
Ukraine Orthodox Angelic Icons
I thank God for this day, for bringing me together with this space, for allowing me to be a clear and present vessel for Your energy.
I ask that I am able to detach and release from all that no longer serves.
I ask that I am able to detach and release from the outcome of this, my prayer, so that all may be offered in the Highest Good.
I ask for this or something better with all my brothers and sisters.
Amen
Song sung after meditation - Bread and Roses
by James Oppenheim (1882-1932)
As we come marching, marching, in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill-lofts gray
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing, "Bread and Roses, Bread and Roses."
As we come marching, marching, we battle, too, for men --
For they are women's children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes --
Hearts starve as well as bodies: Give us Bread, but give us Roses.
As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient song of Bread;
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew --
Yes, it is bread we fight for -- but we fight for Roses, too.
As we come marching, marching, we bring the Greater Days --
The rising of the women means the rising of the race --
No more the drudge and idler -- ten that toil where one reposes --
But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and Roses, Bread and Roses.
