Readings week of October 27th.
- heather
- Nov 2, 2025
- 8 min read
Readings from last week's Daily Contemplative Pauses
*All previous readings & reflections can be found here*
Monday, October 27th with LeMel
Reading: 'Kindness' by Naoimi Nye
Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.
Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.
Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.
Chant: Sing to sorrow. Catch the thread. Sense the whole dark cloth. Now only kindness makes sense anymore. Only kindness is the deepest thing inside LeMel Firestone-Palerm
Tuesday, October 28th with LeMel
Reading: 'The Unbroken' by Rashani Réa
There is a brokenness
out of which comes the unbroken,
a shatteredness
out of which blooms the unshatterable.
There is a sorrow
beyond all grief which leads to joy
and a fragility
out of whose depths emerges strength.
There is a hollow space
too vast for words
through which we pass with each loss,
out of whose darkness
we are sanctioned into being.
There is a cry deeper than all sound
whose serrated edges cut the heart
as we break open to the place inside
which is unbreakable and whole
while learning to sing.
Chant: Let a deeper cry sing forth. Break open to unbreakable. Unshakable heart wholeness. — LeMel Firestone-Palerm
October 30, 2025 with LeMel
Reading: 'When Death Comes' by Mary Oliver
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.
Chant: Bride to amazement. Bridegroom holding the world. I look on all as kin. I make this moment my home. — LeMel Firestone-Palerm
October 31st with LeMel
Personal ghoulie or ghostie work. Today is Halloween. Cynthia Bourgeault has said about this day: “Halloween, that great druidic celebration is often lost in excess and revelry. But if you pay attention, it is actually asking us to acknowledge the false self (yes, head out trick-or-treating dressed as your false self!), let the “ghoulies and ghosties, long leggity beasties, and things that go bump in the night” cavort as they will without causing us alarm. ‘All shall be well, and all manner of long leggity thing shall be well.’”
If you were a part of the Mary Magdalene retreat with Heather this past Saturday you will have heard the poem for today. It is a remarkable poem that elucidates what may be some of the demons or devils that we may deal with. We can use the work we do with all these shadows as a path to transformation, as Mary Magdalene did. In fact, there is no other path to wholeness - no other way but through the valley of shadow (I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me). Here is the poem:
Magdalene—The Seven Devils by Marie Howe
“Mary, called Magdalene, from whom seven devils had been cast out” Luke 8:2.
The first was that I was very busy.
The second—I was different from you: whatever happened to you could
not happen to me, not like that.
The third—I worried.
The fourth—envy, disguised as compassion.
The fifth was that I refused to consider the quality of life of the aphid,
The aphid disgusted me. But I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
The mosquito too—its face. And the ant—its bifurcated body.
Ok the first was that I was so busy.
The second that I might make the wrong choice,
because I had decided to take that plane that day,
that flight, before noon, so as to arrive early
and, I shouldn’t have wanted that.
The third was that if I walked past the certain place on the street
the house would blow up.
The fourth was that I was made of guts and blood with a thin layer
of skin lightly thrown over the whole thing.
The fifth was that the dead seemed more alive to me than the living,
The sixth—if I touched my right arm I had to touch my left arm, and if I
touched the left arm a little harder than I’d first touched the right then I had
to retouch the left and then touch the right again so it would be even.
The seventh—I knew I was breathing the expelled breath of everything that
was alive, and I couldn’t stand it.
I wanted a sieve, a mask, a, I hate this word—cheesecloth—
to breath through that would trap it—whatever was inside everyone else that
entered me when I breathed in.
No. That was the first one.
The second was that I was so busy. I had no time. How had this happened?
How had our lives gotten like this?
The third was that I couldn’t eat food if I really saw it—distinct, separate
from me in a bowl or on a plate.
Ok. The first was that. I could never get to the end of the list.
The second was that the laundry was never finally done.
The third was that no one knew me, although they thought they did.
And that if people thought of me as little as I thought of them then what was
love?
The fourth was I didn’t belong to anyone. I wouldn’t allow myself to belong
to anyone.
The fifth was that I knew none of us could ever know what we didn’t know.
The sixth was that I projected onto others what I myself was feeling.
The seventh was the way my mother looked when she was dying,
the sound she made—her mouth wrenched to the right and cupped open
so as to take in as much air… the gurgling sound, so loud
we had to speak louder to hear each other over it.
And that I couldn’t stop hearing it—years later—grocery shopping, crossing the street—
No, not the sound—it was her body’s hunger
finally evident—what our mother had hidden all her life.
For months I dreamt of knucklebones and roots,
the slabs of sidewalk pushed up like crooked teeth by what grew underneath.
The underneath. That was the first devil. It was always with me.
And that I didn’t think you—if I told you—would understand any of this—
Finally, here is a short practiceI learned from one of my teachers (based on a traditional Hawaiian practice) that can be used to work with any shadowed part, feeling, physical discomfort, even difficult people or circumstances in our lives:
The Clearing Phrases:
"________, thanks for being here. I love you.
I am you and you are me.
Please forgive me. I forgive myself."
For example: “Hectic feeling in the pit of my stomach, thanks for being here. I love you. I am you and you are me. Please forgive me. I forgive myself.”
After saying these phrases out loud (or at least whispering them), notice any changes. Rinse and repeat as needed with any ghoulies or ghosties that arise for you. This practice works something like the Welcoming Prayer practice. Whatever practice we use, it is helpful to work with our shadowed parts.
Chant: Shadowed parts of me. How I welcome thee. We are one. Held in love. Forgiveness freely flows. — LeMel Firestone-Palerm
Resources shared:
November 2nd with LeMel
Reading: Recent Personal Griefs and Losses
“From there, having glimpsed on November 1 that (in the words of a wonderful old children’s book) ‘all land is one land under the sea,’ we are then invited on November 2 to return to our human condition and particularity; to acknowledge and grieve the ones we have lost (from the viewpoint of this world) and to prepare ourselves to live more deeply and courageously this strange dual walk that we humans seem cosmically appointed to traverse, poised ‘at the intersection of the timeless with time’ as the poet T. S. Eliot depicts it.” — Cynthia Bourgeault
Here is a poem that touches on love and loss in a poignant and meaningful way:
Reading: For those Who Have Died
Eleh Ezkerah - These We Remember by Judah Halevi or Emanual of Rome
‘Tis a fearful thing
To love
What death can touch.
To love, to hope, to dream,
And oh, to lose.
A thing for fools, this,
Love,
But a holy thing,
To love what death can touch.
For your life has lived in me;
Your laugh once lifted me;
Your word was a gift to me.
To remember this brings painful joy.
‘Tis a human thing, love,
A holy thing,
To love
What death can touch.
Chant: Love, love, love. Tis a human thing, to love. A holy thing, to love. Your life has lived in me; Your laugh once lifted me; Your word was gift to me. — LeMel Firestone-Palerm
Suggestion for marking the day:
Find a way to remember/honor current griefs or losses and prepare to continue our paths having honored ourselves and our loved ones.
Consider making an altar of remembrance. This can be as simple as lighting a candle in the midst of photos or representations of loved ones that have died, or can be more elaborate with memorabilia, favorite food items of those passed, flowers, incense, etc. An altar of remembrance honors those who have gone before us and the enduring gifts they may have blessed us with.
Return to the clearing phrases of the first day and work with grief or loss with these phrases.
Spend some time journaling (perhaps write a letter to a dearly beloved departed one) or drawing or listening to music or watching videos or otherwise remembering/celebrating beloved family members.
Make a meal they would have loved and make a toast to them.
There are so many ways to allow ourselves to remember and welcome our own experience and allow grief to work its way through us.
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