Thoughts of Gratitude

Normal day,
let me be aware of the treasure that you are. 

Let me learn from you, love you, bless you before you depart.

Let me not pass you by in the quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow.

Let me hold you while I may, for it may not always be so. 

One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow,
or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky
and want, more than all the world, your return.

~Mary Jean Iron

What We Know...

Our thanks to Diane D'Souza who joined us for a dance workshop on grief and loss yesterday.  The impact was powerful and the emotions were alive in the room.  We learned some beautiful movements from classical Indian dance, but more so, we honored the wisdom in the room about grief and loss..

When asked what we know about grief and loss, here's a few comments from our participants:

• losing someone you love transforms you forever
• tells me about what is or who is meaningful to me in my life
• physically…the cheek caves in where the caress would have come
• incomprehensible that you can survive or that the pain will lessen
• loss can turn into a gift

Thanks to all who joined us.  May these words of wisdom continue to enrich the experience.

Prayer

Every day I want to speak with you. And every day something more important / 
calls for my attention -- the drugstore, the beauty products, the luggage / 

I need to buy for the trip. /
Even now I can hardly sit here / 

among the falling piles of paper and clothing, the garbage trucks outside /
already screeching and banging. /

The mystics say you are as close as my own breath. /
Why do I flee from you? /

My days and nights pour through me like complaints /
and become a story I forgot to tell. /

Help me. Even as I write these words I am planning /
to rise from the chair as soon as I finish this sentence. 

~Marie Howe, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time, W.W. Norton & Co.