A Vessel For Blessing - John O'Donohue

May morning be astir withe the harvest of night;
Your mind quickening to the eros of a new question,
Your eyes seduced by some unintended glimpse
That cut right through the surface to Source.

May this be a morning of innocent beginning,
When the gift within you slips clear
Of the sticky web of the personal
With its hurt and its hauntings,
And fixed fortress corners.

A morning when you become a pure vessel
For what wants to ascend from Silence.

May your imagination know
The grace of perfect danger,

To reach beyond imitation,
and the wheel of repetition,

Deep into the call of all
The unfinished and unsolved

Until the veil of the unknown yields
And something original begins
To stir toward your senses
And grow stronger in your heart

In order to come to birth
In a clean line of form,
That claims from time
A rhythm not yet heard,
That calls space to
A different shape.

May it be its own force field
And dwell uniquely
Between the heart and the light

To surprise the hungry eye
By how deftly it fits
About its secret loss.

John O'Donohue
From - To Bless The Space Between Us
Original title: "Blessing for Artists at the Start of the Day"

with thanks to The Beauty We Love

Photo - Mystic Meandering

Commentary by Brittany Deninger:

One of the things that O'Donohue's exquisite blessings suggest is that blessing doesn't erase difficulty, but rather reaches deeper.  [Blessing] he says, is not the invention of what is not there, nor the glaze-eyed belief that the innocent energy of goodwill can alter what is destructive.  Blessing.....issues from the confident depth of the hidden self, and its vision and force can transform what is deadlocked, numbed, and inevitable.  When you bless someone, you literally call the force of their infinite self into action.

The hope of a blessing is that we reach for language that is large enough to hold and welcome the full range of human experience. ...our hardships are an inevitable part of the story.  Our difficult experiences are our teachers that mark us and make us. ...the words that pass between us have potential to invite and to invoke.  Our words can clear a path for the depth of another soul to emerge.  The central gesture of a blessing is presence calling to presence.

Brittany Deninger
Asst. Instructor in Theology and Culture
Excerpt from an essay entitled: "The Art of Blessing", posted in the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology Website