For Christmas - John O'Donohue: Beannacht/Blessing

On this Christmas Day my heart is filled with gratitude. My life is blessed with an abundance of beauty, joy, and love. There have also been many challenges and losses. Coming to know and embrace both my joys and my sorrows has helped me to see the joy and the suffering of others and the many forms it takes. At Christmas there is often this message of joy in all it's radiance and beauty, kindness and love, generosity and caring. While intimately knowing this joy I also am conscious of the pain, fear, loss, struggle, uncertainty, and violence that is the great reality for so many. And this experience of both joy and suffering moves me to share this beautiful poem by John O'Donohue, "Beannacht" or Blessing. May each of us find, know, and travel the beautiful bridge of empathic awareness which connects us with both life's losses and sorrows and also with life's deep love, beauty, and peace. May we each do our part to be the kindness and peace that is deeply needed in our world, in our nation, in our communities, in our families, and in our own hearts. ♥

Warmest blessings ~ Molly

Beannacht / Blessing

On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.

And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The grey window
And the ghost of loss
Gets into you,
May a flock of colours,
Indigo, red, green
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
In the currach of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life.

- John O'Donohue