On the ninth of each month we have been called to hold space in our communities on life, death and transformation by ObservetheNinth.org. Today’s vigil will help us grieve the deaths of our own mothers on this Mother’s Day. May it bring you peace and comfort.
“MOTHER” by NIKITA GILL
The water of her womb, your first home.
The body she pulled apart to welcome you to the world.
The spirit in you she helped grow with all she knew.
The heart that she gave you when yours fell apart.
You are her soft miracle.
So she gave you her eyes to see the best in the worst.
You carry your mother in your eyes.
Make her proud of all she watches you do.
On the ninth of each month we have been called to hold space in our communities on life, death and transformation by ObservetheNinth.org. Today’s vigil will hold space for coping with all of the overwhelming changes that have crushed us this past year. May it bring you peace and comfort.
Poem: by Ginny Yurich
From the trees I learned
That growth isn’t orderly.
Under the surface
Roots thrust out in ways
That are chaotic and untidy,
But they produce the solid foundation
For a lifetime of growth.
From the chick,
The butterfly and the frog,
I learned that change is possible,
Even the kind of change
That renders us unrecognizable.
And from the garden I learned
That at the end of harvest
When all looks bleak, even dead,
There remains an undercurrent
Of new possibilities.
We can look a little deeper and find
There are always things that thrive
Even in the harshest of conditions.
On the ninth of each month we have been called to hold space in our communities on life, death and transformation by ObservetheNinth.org. Today’s vigil will hold space for kindness even while we are brokenhearted by overwhelming grief. May it bring you peace and comfort.
Vigil for Kindness in the Midst of Overwhelming Grief
Blessing for the Brokenhearted
BY JAN RICHARDSONThere is no remedy for love but to love more.– Henry David Thoreau
Let us agree
for now
that we will not say
the breaking
makes us stronger
or that it is better
to have this pain
than to have done
without this love.
Let us promise
we will not
tell ourselves
time will heal
the wound,
when every day
our waking
opens it anew.
Perhaps for now
it can be enough
to simply marvel
at the mystery
of how a heart
so broken
can go on beating,
as if it were made
for precisely this—
as if it knows
the only cure for love
is more of it,
as if it sees
the heart’s sole remedy
for breaking
is to love still,
as if it trusts
that its own
persistent pulse
is the rhythm
of a blessing
we cannot
begin to fathom
but will save us
nonetheless.
On the ninth of each month we have been called to hold space in our communities on life, death and transformation by ObservetheNinth.org. Today’s vigil will hold space for the we have been carrying for the past year and help us explore it for the hidden blessings it contains. May it bring you peace and comfort.
Miracles Abide There by Bruce Sterling
(from Not Enough: Musings on Grief)
We each have loss none escape it.
Grief,
the healing process that reintegrates feelings and thoughts, desires and regrets, the past and
no future.
Through life, through living we choose the palate but never
the timing,
the circumstances or the outcome.
So there it is,
shock
then sadness,
later
reality,
an unreal reality
the likes of which you've never experienced.
Like taffy
you're pulled
into shapes
that leave you
in a state
from which you can never return.
Like flying in the clouds you can't tell which end is up even when firmly planted in your seat.
Like walking the streets on Christmas morning when gifts are exchanged and no one’s outside.
Like you've walked into the emotional post-apocalypse.
Like love has filled your heart but the drain plug
is three times the size
it should be,
and the vacuum left collapses everything
that made sense, everything
that gave you substance, everything.
Grief,
the humanizing, humbling shape-shifter
that tears
the fabric of you and explodes your heart into newer dimensions you didn't realize you signed up for.
I don't wish the pain on anybody
I just know the value of the outcome. Miracles abide there,
if you can just see.
On the ninth of each month we have been called to hold space in our communities on life, death and transformation by ObservetheNinth.org. Today’s vigil will hold space for the rightful anger we are all dealing with right now and help us transform it to power. May it bring you peace and comfort.
Anger is the deepest form of compassion, for another, for the world, for the self, for a life, for the body, for a family and for all our ideals, all vulnerable and all, possibly about to be hurt. Stripped of physical imprisonment and violent reaction, anger is the purest form of care, the internal living flame of anger always illuminates what we belong to, what we wish to protect and what we are willing to hazard ourselves for … What we name as anger is actually only the incoherent physical incapacity to sustain this deep form of care in our outer daily life; the unwillingness to be large enough and generous enough to hold what we love helplessly in our bodies or our mind with the clarity and breadth of our whole being.”
On the ninth of each month we have been called to hold space in our communities on life, death and transformation by ObservetheNinth.org. Today’s vigil will hold space for love and compassion for all who are oppressed by systemic injustice and by the weight of grief and fear. May it bring you peace and comfort.
Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus II, 29
Quiet friend who has come so far,
feel how your breathing makes more space around you.
Let this darkness be a bell tower
and you the bell. As you ring,
what batters you becomes your strength.
Move back and forth into the change.
What is it like, such intensity of pain?
If the drink is bitter, turn yourself to wine.
In this uncontainable night,
be the mystery at the crossroads of your senses,
the meaning discovered there.
And if the world has ceased to hear you,
say to the silent earth: I flow.
To the rushing water, speak: I am.
On the ninth of each month we have been called to hold space in our communities on life, death and transformation by ObservetheNinth.org. Today’s vigil will hold space for love and compassion for all of humankind and for the planet itself. May it bring you peace and comfort.
For Lost Friends by John O’Donohue
As twilight makes a rainbow robe
From the concealed colors of day
In order for time to stay alive
Within the dark weight of night,
May we lose no one we love
From the shelter of our hearts.
When we love another heart
And allow it to love us,
We journey deep below time
Into that eternal weave
Where nothing unravels.
May we have the grace to see
Despite the hurt of rupture,
The searing of anger,
And the empty disappointment,
That whoever we have loved,
Such love can never quench.
Though a door may have closed,
Closed between us,
May we be able to view
Our lost friends with eyes
Wise with calming grace;
Forgive them the damage
We were left to inherit;
Free ourselves from the chains
Of forlorn resentment;
Bring warmth again to
Where the heart has frozen
In order that beyond the walls
Of our cherished hurt
And chosen distance
We may be able to
Celebrate the gifts they brought,
Learn and grow from the pain,
And prosper into difference,
Wishing them the peace
Where spirit can summon
Beauty from wounded space.
On the ninth of each month we have been called to hold space in our communities on life, death and transformation by ObservetheNinth.org. Today’s vigil will hold space for love and compassion for all of humankind and for the planet itself. May it bring you peace and comfort.
On the ninth of each month we have been called to hold space in our communities on life, death and transformation by ObservetheNinth.org. Today’s vigil will hold space for love and compassion for all of humankind and for the planet itself. May it bring you peace and comfort.
On the ninth of each month we have been called to hold space in our communities on life, death and transformation by ObservetheNinth.org. Today’s vigil will hold space for love and compassion for all of humankind and for the planet itself. May it bring you peace and comfort.
On the ninth of each month we have been called to hold space in our communities on life, death and transformation by ObservetheNinth.org. Today’s vigil will hold space for our own broken hearts, broken communities, and broken world. May it bring you peace and comfort.
On the ninth of each month we have been called to hold space in our communities on life, death and transformation by ObservetheNinth.org. Today’s vigil will honor those who are grieving. May it bring you peace and comfort.
On the ninth of each month we have been called to hold space in our communities on life, death and transformation by ObservetheNinth.org. Today’s vigil will honor our loved ones who are sick or injured and with whom we cannot be physically present. May it bring you peace and comfort.
