Which wait along the way to transform you.
May you travel safely, arrive refreshed,
And live your time away to its fullest;
Return home more enriched, and free
To balance the gift of days which call you.
FOR A MOTHER-TO-BE
Nothing could have prepared
Your heart to open like this.
From beyond the skies and the stars
This echo arrived inside you
And started to pulse with life,
Each beat a tiny act of growth,
Traversing all our ancient shapes
On its way home to itself.
Once it began, you were no longer your own.
A new, more courageous you, offering itself
In a new way to a presence you can sense
But you have not seen or known.
It has made you feel alone
In a way you never knew before;
Everyone else sees only from the outside
What you feel and feed
With every fiber of your being.
Never have you traveled farther inward
Where words and thoughts become half-light
Unable to reach the fund of brightness
Strengthening inside the night of your womb.
Like some primeval moon,
Your soul brightens
The tides of essence
That flow to your child.
You know your life has changed forever,
For in all the days and years to come,
Distance will never be able to cut you off
From the one you now carry
For nine months under your heart.
May you be blessed with quiet confidence
That destiny will guide you and mind you.
May the emerging spirit of your child
Imbibe encouragement and joy
From the continuous music of your heart,
So that it can grow with ease,
Expectant of wonder and welcome
When its form is fully filled
And it makes its journey out
To see you and settle at last
Relieved, and glad in your arms.
FOR A NEW FATHER
As the shimmer of dawn transforms the night
Into a blush of color futured with delight,
The eyes of your new child awaken in you
A brightness that surprises your life.
Since the first stir of its secret becoming,
The echo of your child has lived inside you,
Strengthening through all its night of forming
Into a sure pulse of fostering music.
How quietly and gently that embryo-echo
Can womb in the bone of a man
And foster across the distance to the mother
A shadow-shelter around this fragile voyage.
Now as you behold your infant, you know
That this child has come from you and to you;
You feel the full force of a father’s desire
To protect and shelter.
Perhaps for the first time,
There awakens in you
A sense of your own mortality.
May your heart rest in the grace of the gift
And you sense how you have been called
Inside the dream of this new destiny.
May you be gentle and loving,
Clear and sure.
May you trust in the unseen providence
That has chosen you all to be a family.
May you stand sure on your ground
And know that every grace you need
Will unfold before you
Like all the mornings of your life.
FOR A FRIEND ON THE ARRIVAL OF ILLNESS
Now is the time of dark invitation
Beyond a frontier you did not expect;
Abruptly, your old life seems distant.
You barely noticed how each day opened
A path through fields never questioned,
Yet expected, deep down, to hold treasure.
Now your time on earth becomes full of threat;
Before your eyes your future shrinks.
You lived absorbed in the day-to-day,
So continuous with everything around you,
That you could forget you were separate;
Now this dark companion has come between you.
Distances have opened in your eyes.
You feel that against your will
A stranger has married your heart.
Nothing before has made you
Feel so isolated and lost.
When the reverberations of shock subside in you,
May grace come to restore you to balance.
May it shape a new space in your heart
To embrace this illness as a teacher
Who has come to open your life to new worlds.
May you find in yourself
A courageous hospitality
Toward what is difficult,
Painful, and unknown.
May you learn to use this illness
As a lantern to illuminate
The new qualities that will emerge in you.
May the fragile harvesting of this slow light
Help to release whatever has become false in you.
May you trust this light to clear a path
Through all the fog of old unease and anxiety
Until you feel arising within you a tranquillity
Profound enough to call the storm to stillness.
May you find the wisdom to listen to your illness:
Ask it why it came. Why it chose your friendship.
Where it wants to take you. What it wants you to know.
What quality of space it wants to create in you.
What you need to learn to become more fully yourself
That your presence may shine in the world.
May you keep faith with your body,
Learning to see it as a holy sanctuary
Which can bring this night-wound gradually
Toward the healing and freedom of dawn.
May you be granted the courage and vision
To work through passivity and self-pity,
To see the beauty you can harvest
From the riches of this dark invitation.
May you learn to receive it graciously,
And promise to learn swiftly
That it may leave you newborn,
Willing to dedicate your time to birth.
AT THE THRESHOLD OF WOMANHOOD
It is like awakening into a morning
Where everything is touched with change.
Now your body has a mind of its own
As it curves and fills into womanhood.
The lightness of being a girl is leaving,
And your thoughts too are taking you
To places you have never known before.
Becoming a woman, you feel the moon
Tug at your blood, and you begin to sense
The mysteries of your new body.
May you enter beautifully into the feminine,
Learning to trust the world of feeling you inherit,
Finding ease and elegance in all you are.
May your respect for your beauty
Become visible in your dignity
And how you hold yourself in the world.
May the expectation in other eyes
Never decide how you are to be;
Learn to trust the advice of your heart.
May you feel life as an irresistible invitation
To discover and develop your talents,
Each day bringing something new to birth.
May you be wise in choosing love;
When you trust, give all your heart
And allow love to pervade you like breath.
May you have friends who can see you.
May your senses be windows of wonder
And your mind a prism of spirit.
AT THE THRESHOLD OF MANHOOD
As you leave the blurred wood
You entered while still a boy,
And light clarifies around
Your emerging, manly form,
May you discover gradually
A natural confidence in your body.
May your new strength be graceful
As you learn to carry yourself
With a dignity that is sure,
Bringing your gestures and expression
Into an easy harmony and rhythm.
May you never feel the need