In September 2020, a few months into the pandemic shut-down, a week or so after forest fires had turned the air orange around us for days, I went out into a clear morning, and was greeted by the day. I wrote this:
“In the cool breeze this morning, something caught my eye that I didn’t recognize at first – and then I remembered: my neighbor has prayer flags hanging on the porch, and there they were, moving in the breeze, sending prayers out in all directions. I stood in my garden, considering the brown stalks of lavender, the squash suddenly thriving, the apples bulging on their branches – and I felt those prayers coming my way. I felt surrounded by prayers, as they moved around me, as they grew up from the ground and the trees and somewhere inside me. For a moment everything was a prayer – a point of attention, a reprieve, a deep breath in, a knowing that I was held – by the world, by the air, by the garden, by the morning.”
There’s a song we sometimes sing on Sundays: “There is a love holding us, there is a love holding all that we love, there is a love holding all, may we rest in that love.” That’s what it felt like to me that morning in the garden – a knowing, once again, that I am held by a life and love much bigger than me, bigger than a day, bigger than anything I can imagine. I am part of the great progression of Life, moving and moved. Each morning, as I remember the gift of breath, I am grateful for more than I can name. Including this circle of community we share, and this practice which holds us together.
