A Blessing for the New Year

John O'Donohue

A Blessing for the New Year is by Irish poet John O'Donohue who is probably my favourite poet.  Recently, I discovered that he was the favourite poet of a neighbour and she loaned me the book To Bless the Space Between Us which is a collection of blessings that John O'Donohue wrote.  It was there that I reconnected with this Beannacht that I love so much.  So, here it is for you at the beginning of 2020.  If ever we needed a blessing, it is now.

Beannacht

On the day

When the weight deadens

On your shoulders

And you tumble,

May the clay dance
To balance you.

And when your eyes

Freeze behind

the gray window

And the ghost of loss

Gets into you,

May a flock of colours,

Indigo, red, green

And azure blue

Come to waken in you

A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays

In the curragh 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 oceans 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.  


And here is a short New Year's message from Clair DuBois of TreeSisters.  In it she invites us to see the beginning of 2020 as a threshold to explore what we are capable of when we work together.  Claire acknowledges that despair is available to us, but so is courage, so is fierce love and so is determination.  Have a listen: