This Paschal Season and our Vigil in this form comes to an end today on Pentecost Sunday. For those of you who have joined me intentionally, our focus has been to work with the wager that during these fifty ‘thin’ days we can be aware of the presence and fragrance of Jesus, the Living One, enfolding us right now. . . to soften and open ourselves, tuning into the heart frequency where this connection and living body can be experienced and Love is flowing toward us. . . to receive whatever teaching Jesus may have specifically for us. . . to keep within and steward our own atmospheres. . . to offer the missing ingredient or fruit of the spirit in the circumstances of our lives in tangible ways. . . to engage the act of birthing, mothering.
We even asked ourselves at the beginning: Am I on some level challenging the current structure of consciousness based in colonization and duality in such a way that is disruptive? What is Jesus as the Living One wanting to show me now? How do I live from the place in me that exists beyond death?
Pause for a moment, close your eyes, bring your awareness to your lungs filling with air and your heart beating, from this sacred breath and heartbeat, which is none other than God’s breath and heartbeat in you, consider the ways the wager we have been working with was true for you. What were your embodied spiritual insights and experiences during this season? I would love to hear from you about any noticings you may have had.
Thank you to all who have consciously taken up this Vigil with me and for the rest of you I hope you were somehow nourished by the awareness of our conscious post holding.
I want to remind you of an upcoming retreat this week, May 27th-31st, Living the Beatitudes: Discovering the Mystical Truth of Jesus’ Words. If you are interested in joining me, Joy Hayter, and Catherine Reagan you can find out more here as well as below. All are welcome and scholarships are available.
May we engage the act of mothering
May we create something new out of our pain
May we practice mutuality instead of hierarchy
May we choose self-love instead of internalized oppression
May we practice intersectionality, refusing to let hegemony “divide and conquer” us
May we be the way we heal
With love,
Heather
Here are the readings from this week from Neil Douglas-Klotz’s book “Prayers of the Cosmos: Reflecting on the Original Meaning of Jesus’s Words [in Aramaic]” as well as two others:
Reflection on “Our Father which art in heaven”:
“O Birther! Father-Mother of the Cosmos, you create all that moves in light.
O Thou! The Breathing Life of all, Creator of the Shimmering Sound that touches us.
Respiration of all worlds, we hear you breathing - in and out - in silence.
Source of Sound: in the roar and the whisper, in the breeze and the whirlwind, we hear your Name.
Radiant One: You shine within us, outside us - even darkness shines - when we remember.
Name of names, our small identity unravels in you, you give it back as a lesson.
Wordless Action, Silent Potency - where ears and eyes awaken, there heaven comes.
O Birther! Father-Mother of the Cosmos!”
Reflection on “Hallowed be thy name”:
“Focus your light within us - make it useful: as the rays of a beacon show the way.
Help us breath one holy breath feeling only you - this creates a shrine inside, in wholeness.
Help us let go, clear the space inside of busy forgetfulness: so the Name comes to live.
Your name, your sound can move us if we tune our hearts as instruments for its tone.
Hear the one Sound that created all others, in this way the Name is hollowed in silence.
In peace the Name resides: a ‘room of one’s own,’ a holy of lies open, giving light, to all.
We all look elsewhere for this light - it draws us out of ourselves - but the Name always lives within.
Focus your light within us - make it useful!”
Reflection on “Thy kingdom come”:
“Create your reign of unity now - through our fiery hearts and willing hands.
Let your counsel rule our lives, clearing our intention for co-creation.
Unite our ‘I can’ to yours, so that we walk as kings and queens with every creature.
Desire with and through us the rule of universal fruitfulness onto the earth.
Your rule springs into existence as our arms reach out to embrace all creation.
Come into the bedroom of our hearts, prepare us for the marriage of power and beauty.
From this divine union, let us birth new images for a new wold of peace.
Create your reign of unity now!”
Reflection on “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven”:
“Your one desire then acts with ours, as in all light, so in all forms.
Let all wills move together in your vortex, as stars and planets swirl through the sky.
Help us love beyond our ideals and sprout acts of compassion for all creatures.
As we find your love in ours, let heaven and nature form a new creation.
Unite the crowd within in a vision of passionate purpose: light mates with form.
Create in me a divine cooperation — from many selves, one voice, one action.
Let your heart’s fervent desire unite heaven and earth through our harmony.
Your one desire then acts with ours, as in all light, so in all forms.”
“Each one entering [this] room has been drawn to this place...That is to say each one coming into the room is a living embodiment of the unitive nature of reality to which he or she has been awakened in an intimate, intuitive, body-grounded way. Each one entering the room is at the cutting edge of a grace engendering a riddle, which, in being entered into and embraced, is in turn giving rise to new graces. Each is coming in to hear a little [reading] and to sit in meditation, during which he or she will draw from and contribute to the communal mystery in which we are precious and whole in our fragmentation. God inhales, drawing us into places where we gather together in the hope of tasting yet once again the communal mystery that is our life. And God exhales, sending all of us back into the day by day circumstances in which we are to discover the mystery of God, one with us, one with others, one with the earth that sustains us.”
— James Finley
'A Blessing with Roots'
Tug at this blessing
and you will find
it is a thing
with roots.
This is a blessing
that has gone deep
into good soil,
into the sacred dark,
into the luminous hidden.
It has been months
since the ground
gathered the seed
of this blessing
into itself,
years since the earth
enfolded it.
Sometimes
that’s how long
a blessing takes.
And the fact
that this blessing
should finally show
its first fruits
on the day
you happened by—
well, perhaps we shall
simply call the timing
of this ripening
a mystery
and a sweet grace.
Take all you want
of this blessing.
Take every morsel
that you need for
the path ahead.
Let its fruits fall
into your hands;
gather them into
the basket of
your arms.
Let this blessing
be one place
where you are willing
to receive
in unmeasured portions,
to lay aside
for a moment
the way you ration
your delights.
Let yourself accept
its inexplicable plenitude;
allow it to give itself
to sustain you
not simply for yourself—
though on this bright day
I might be persuaded
to think that would
be enough—
but that you may
gather its seeds
into yourself
like the ground
where this blessing began
and wait
with the patience
of seasons
and of years
to bear forth
in the fullness of time
a stunning harvest,
a plenteous feast.
— Jan Richardson