Bless us with the first breath of morning.  Bless the packet of seeds for the garden, shaking like a shaman’s rattle in prayer.  Bless us with spare change in our pockets to give to the homeless, bless us with a heart that has been serviced by the mechanic, bless us with good tires on the icy road.  Bless us so that we’re not just covering our own asses, but weeping for the rest of the world.  Bless our tears so that they irrigate the land for the starving, that there be no more drought.  Bless us with one idea after another that we might sort out the good from the bad, bless us with free lunches and subscriptions, bless us with a winter storm so big that it closes everything down for a week and we find ourselves at the beginning of time.  Bless us with water, bless us with light, bless us with darkness, and bless us with language.  Bless our tongues that we can speak.  Bless our cars so they start.  Bless our computers so that they may connect to the internet, and bring us the news of the universe.  Bless Robert Bly and Gloria Steinem, bless all the worn-out athletes whose bodies are falling apart, bless the tides twice a day and the moon every month.  Bless the sun, bless us as we are blessing you, for this is a two-way street, after all, and we’re in this think together.  Bless mass transit, and the first cup of coffee.  Sing O ye frost heaves and icy patches, praise the spruce trees all crowded together, the crows in the trees flying heavenward and earthward, flying everywhere in between.  Bless the night with its constellations that we have dreamed up.  Bless our stories that they may somehow be true, for this is all we have.  Bless all creatures great and small and the basket makers who weave together a framework to hold emptiness.  Bless the empty spaces that are within our bodies, the vast distances inside each cell.  Bless each cell, which is its own universe, ready to divide, split in two, and make more than enough.

Prayers & Run-on Sentencesby Stuart Kestenbaum

I found this image many months ago and tucked it into a blogpost draft. Yesterday, when scanning my drafts, I looked at it again and thought about clouds and about sky and about the big view, the way light illuminates and hides what is present, and about what happens when the big clouds of misfortune and sorrow roll in.

There is no way to look at these clouds and see only sorrow and misfortune. There is also depth, color, movement, light, glory.  These clouds are also scary – potent with the possibility of storm and the lightening strikes of death and dismemberment.  The sky is black, the source of the light is hidden.

Sometimes the clouds are so overwhelming that we must dive down, press ourselves against the earth, shiver there.  Jungian Marion Woodman says that to learn humility we must lay flat on the ground, feel the living pulse of the earth, to know that you are part of that pulse.

Jack Hirschman “Path” (2 of 5) – 2006 Poet Laureate of San Francisco from One Night Music on Vimeo.

Path

Go to your broken heart.

If you think you don’t have one, get one.

To get one, be sincere.

Learn sincerity of intent by letting

life enter because you’re helpless, really,

to do otherwise.

Even as you try escaping, let it take you

and tear you open

like a letter sent

like a sentence inside

you’ve waited for all your life

though you’ve committed nothing.

Let is send you up.

Let it break you, heart.

Broken-heartedness is the beginning

of all real reception.

The ear of humility hears beyond the gates.

See the gates opening.

Feel your hands going akimbo on your hips,

your mouth opening like a womb

giving birth to your voice for the first time.

Go singing whirling into the glory

of being ecstatically simple.

Write the poem.

— Jack Hirschman

Thank you Polly Styron for this one.