Glimmers of springtime

I was out on the beach yesterday, talking with my dear friend and neighbor Joanna. She's been back from her latest visit with her grandchildren for a week now, but she's been down with a cold so this was the first I'd seen her in almost a month.

So we were discussing the transition places in our lives, those shifts that begin inevitably to occur - like spring colds - as we move into this new season. There's something about the challenges of winter that has made both of us appreciate our mates more than usual -- always a good thing -- and at the same time we each feel something in the wings, waiting to bloom.

But the waiting isn't always easy: as John O'Donohue says in his blessing "For Loneliness":

"The light lessens,
Causing colors to lose their courage,
And your eyes fix on the empty distance
That can open on either side
Of the surest line
To make all that is
Familiar and near
Seem suddenly foreign."

As the poem went on, it seemed clear that it was speaking to some of the anxiety and confusion of yesterday's post:

"When the old ghosts come back
To feed on everywhere you felt sure,
Do not strengthen their hunger
By choosing to fear;
Rather, decide to call on your heart
That it may grow clear and free
To welcome home your emptiness
That it may cleanse you
Like the clearest air
You could ever breathe."

And then, as the poem ends, I can hear Kim's voice from her comment on yesterday's post:

"Cradle yourself like a child
Learning to trust what emerges,
So that gradually
You may come to know
That deep in that black hole
You will find the blue flower
That holds the mystical light
Which will illuminate in you
The glimmer of springtime."

So here, for you -- if you, too, are finding this waiting for resurrection tiresome, or fearful, or just plain lonely -- here, for you, is the blue flower: may its mystical light illuminate the glimmer of springtime in your soul.

And thanks for listening!

NOTE: All John O'Donohue quotations are from his wonderful book of blessings, To Bless the Space Between Us (© John O’Donohue. All rights reserved). To learn more about John O'Donohue, be sure to visit his website: www.johnodonohue.com