#Adventword Day 19: Beautify

Snowy Night by Mary Oliver

Last night, an owl
in the blue dark
tossed
an indeterminate number
of carefully shaped sounds into
the world, in which,
a quarter of a mile away, I happened
to be standing.
I couldn’t tell
which one it was –
the barred or the great-horned
ship of the air –
it was that distant. But, anyway,
aren’t there moments
that are better than knowing something,
and sweeter? Snow was falling,
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
than prettiness. I suppose
if this were someone else’s story
they would have insisted on knowing
whatever is knowable – would have hurried
over the fields
to name it – the owl, I mean.
But it’s mine, this poem of the night,
and I just stood there, listening and holding out
my hands to the soft glitter
falling through the air. I love this world,
but not for its answers.
And I wish good luck to the owl,
whatever its name –
and I wish great welcome to the snow,
whatever its severe and comfortless
and beautiful meaning.

New Year Retreats now open for registration!

Review the year that has passed . . .
             Release what you need to let go . . .
                     Celebrate the milestones of 2014 . . .
                               Reflect on your intentions for 2015 . . .
                                         

This year we are pleased to offer two retreat options to better help you move mindfully into the new year . . . 

Option 1:  At-Home, On-Line

Registration fee is $45. Click here to register.

• Retreat materials sent to you ahead of time include readings, reflection activities, and meditation suggestion

• Work through the exercises and activities according to your own rhythm and schedule

• Periodic emails prompt times to pause for reflection.

• Scheduled opportunities to learn from and share with others via social media or gather your own retreat community to work through the materials in community

Option 2:  In-Person, Half Day Retreat at Washington National Cathedral

Wednesday, December 31 from 10am - 2 pm

Registration Fee is $60. Click here to register.

In addition to the benefits of the At-Home, On-Line option, the half day retreat offers you time to . . . 

• experience the retreat in a community of kindred spirits;

• enjoy guided reflections and meditations;

• explore additional resources and exercises not in the retreat packet; and

• settle into a contemplative rhythm in the quiet alcoves of the Center for Prayer and Pilgrimage with all its resources available to you.

#Adventword Day 18: Become

No End to the Journey by Rumi (trans. by Robert Bly)
No end, no end to the journey
no end, no end never
how can the heart in love
ever stop opening
if you love me,
you won't just die once
in every moment
you will die into me
to be reborn

Into this new love, die
your way begins
on the other side
become the sky
take an axe to the prison wall,
escape
walk out like someone
suddenly born into color
do it now

This picture was taken in Lebanon at the famous cedar trees,which have been decimated by deforestation. So few trees are left standing that when one dies, artists carve the dead wood into religious icons and leave them standing among the living trees.

#Adventword Day 17: Experience

Helplessness by Kerry Hardie

Oh, heart, 
why can’t you learn
that there is nothing to do in the world except live in it?

Why can’t you take its deep gifts –

the birds and the cars in the rain; 
lost keys and the broken-hearted?

In order to be fully, whole-heartedly alive I need to allow myself to #experience not only wonder, mystery, joy and awe but also doubt, confusion, sorrow and despair.

#Adventword Day 16: Focus

Primary Wonder by Denise Levertov
Days pass when I forget the mystery.
Problems insoluble and problems offering
their own ignored solutions
jostle for my attention, they crowd its antechamber
along with a host of diversions, my courtiers, wearing
their colored clothes; caps and bells.
                                                    And then
once more the quiet mystery
is present to me, the throng's clamor
recedes:  the mystery
that there is anything, anything at all,
let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything,
rather than void: and that, 0 Lord,
Creator, Hallowed one, You still,
hour by hour sustain it.

#Adventword Day 15: #Expand

All the Hemispheres by Hafez
Leave the familiar for a while.
Let your senses and bodies stretch out

Like a welcomed season
Onto the meadow and shores and hills
 
Open up to the Roof.
Make a new watermark on your excitement
And love,

Like a blooming night flower,
Bestow your vital fragrance of happiness
And giving
Upon our intimate assembly.

Change rooms in your mind for a day
 
All the hemispheres in existence
Lie beside an equator
In your heart

Greet Yourself
In your thousand other forms
As you mount the hidden tide and travel
Back home.

All the hemispheres in heaven
Are sitting around a fire
Chatting

While stitching themselves together
Into the Great Circle inside of
You

#Adventword Day 14: Risk

MORNING POEM
by Mary Oliver from New and Selected Poems:  Volume One  (Beacon Press)

Every morning
the world
is created. 
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches ---
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies. 
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere. 
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead ---
if it's all you can do
to keep on trudging ---

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted ---

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly, 
every morning, 

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy, 
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.