It’s routine in some parts for total strangers to remark, “have a blessed day.” And I can’t count the number of times I automatically murmur “bless you” each sneezy winter season. All of this casual generalized blessing might lead us to discount the word. Fortunately, I was recently reawakened to the depth of its meaning by the poet David Whyte.
A blessing is more than good wishes, he noted. It is someone seeing greater things in us than we see in ourselves, and wishing us greater good fortune than we would dare to dream of for our own lives.
Dear ones, if we are very lucky indeed, we have a few cherished people who do not only love us, but bless us. They see our highest selves. They light a brighter path.
May we bask in this generosity.
May we extend our own blessings in return.
Beannacht / Blessing
by John O’Donohue
On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.
And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets into you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green
and azure blue,
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.
When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.
May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.
* This lovely blessing from John O’Donohue, and many others, can be found in his book, To Bless the Space Between Us. And more wonderful illuminations on language can be found in David Whyte’s Consolations.