I believe in morning rituals although I fail all too often these days to engage in them. Still, I can’t stress enough how important they are, how effective they can be in getting me ready to greet my day feeling steadied and grounded, readied (at least for the moment) to really see the beauty before me and committed to greet those I meet with an open heart.
I’ve found both poetry and music to be particularly helpful when initiating one of my first deliberate and conscious acts of the day. I thought I’d share one with you that was written by the late poet, John O’ Donahue entitled, “For the Artist at the Start of the Day.”
“May morning be astir with the harvest of night;
Your mind quickening to the eros of a new question,
Your eyes seduced by some unintended glimpse
That cut right through the surface to a source.
May this be a morning of innocent beginning,
When the gift within you slips clear
Of the sticky web of the personal
With its hurt and its hauntings,
And fixed fortress corners,
A Morning when you become a pure vessel
For what wants to ascend from silence,
May your imagination know
The grace of perfect danger,
To reach beyond imitation,
And the wheel of repetition,
Deep into the call of all
The unfinished and unsolved
Until the veil of the unknown yields
And something original begins
To stir toward your senses
And grow stronger in your heart
In order to come to birth
In a clean line of form,
That claims from time
A rhythm not yet heard,
That calls space to
A different shape.
May it be its own force field
And dwell uniquely
Between the heart and the light
To surprise the hungry eye
By how deftly it fits
About its secret loss.”
~ John O’Donohue ~
O’Donohue reminds me here that every life is a work of art and that att some level we are reborn again and again with each brand new ordinary/extraordinary day….
Spirituality, Therapy, and the Good Life 