


May the light of your soul mind you...... May you be blessed;
And may you find a wonderful love
In your self for your self.
John O’Donohue, For Old Age
In my search for night mantras the other evening, I started to look again at John O’Donohue’s To Bless the Space Between Us, A Book of Blessings. I must have seen the book quoted on Barbara’s blog. My lust for books having gotten the best of me, I bought it. I read it some, but my to and fro between continents never quite allowed me to get into it.
The other evening, however, I was looking for a mantra that would keep me company — and safe — during my nocturnal skirmishes with my unfinished business. As I skimmed the pages, my eyes fell on the two-plus pages entitled For Belonging. Of the twenty blessings, three spoke to me. They said:
May you arise each day with a voice of blessing whispering
in your heart...
May there be kindness in your gaze when you look within...
May you become the gracious and passionate subject of your own life.
in your heart...
May there be kindness in your gaze when you look within...
May you become the gracious and passionate subject of your own life.
I connected this longing I feel within myself for ‘kindness toward my self’ — at last! — to Barbara’s latest blog, Samayou, where she writes —
We all hope for the perfect childhood, the perfect body, the perfect education, the perfect marriage, the perfect church, the perfect lifestyle, the perfect rescue kittehs even! We never stop reaching for that either, do we?Does my inner landscape feel so desolate and dry, starving even, because of my own need for perfection? Or is it just because my attention is so much more on the outside world than on the inside?
At any rate, those lines of O’Donohue were a warning signal to myself that I needed to tend my inner garden if I do not want it to waste away.
In earlier years, I would have taken care of my wasteland by going out and buying something — as a token of my appreciation for my needs. Like when my husband used to go on long business trips and I found myself alone with two lovely little girls.
Today I know better. No one but myself can really give me what I need. I need to spend time with that fount of light which glows in my heart and hides behind my closed eyelids. I need to turn to Him, my friend and rabbi, who is forever available to my call. I need to feed more on the Word. I must write for myself before I write for and to others. I have to return daily to yoga to tell my body that I cherish it, aging and all. Then, I will return to my daily life, a bit better, with that peace which is within, the source of all beauty and kindness.
Art: Marlene Dumas, The Kiss











