This week’s story is of a very special 71 year old, and the way we marked the dawn of his eighth decade at this time last year. Heading into his 70th birthday on the heels of a divorce, he didn’t want a party. Instead we took a walk into the woods together for a private Ceremony of Letting Go & New Beginnings, designed in four parts.
Part 1: Creating Ceremonial Space
We walked together to a favorite spot on the trail, a modest bridge over a gentle stream. We cast a circle of protection around us using wood ash, and purified the space by burning sage. He called in the spirits he wanted to acknowledge and asked his heart to open to acceptance and gratitude.
Part 1: Creating Ceremonial Space
We walked together to a favorite spot on the trail, a modest bridge over a gentle stream. We cast a circle of protection around us using wood ash, and purified the space by burning sage. He called in the spirits he wanted to acknowledge and asked his heart to open to acceptance and gratitude.
Part 2: Letting Go
Facing downstream, we used John O’Donohue’s Blessing for the Break-Up of a Relationship as prelude to a litany of questions: What are you letting go of? What needs forgiveness? Are you ready to forgive yourself and release what needs to be released? With his answers, he knelt to burn some keepsakes from the wedding that began the marriage now ended.
Borrowing John O’Donohue’s words, we invoked his Blessing To Come Home to Yourself:
May all that is unforgiven in you be released.
May your fears yield their deepest tranquilities.
May all that is unlived in you blossom into a future graced with love.
Facing downstream, we used John O’Donohue’s Blessing for the Break-Up of a Relationship as prelude to a litany of questions: What are you letting go of? What needs forgiveness? Are you ready to forgive yourself and release what needs to be released? With his answers, he knelt to burn some keepsakes from the wedding that began the marriage now ended.
Borrowing John O’Donohue’s words, we invoked his Blessing To Come Home to Yourself:
May all that is unforgiven in you be released.
May your fears yield their deepest tranquilities.
May all that is unlived in you blossom into a future graced with love.
Part 3: Opening
What is unlived within you that wants to blossom? Facing upstream, open to the flow, my friend responded to this and other prompts with his intentions for this next phase of his life. As he scattered the ashes from the objects he had burned, we turned to O’Donohue for one last blessing, the Blessing for a New Beginning.
Part 4: Celebrating New Beginnings
Finally, we moved from the transitional space of the bridge, which my friend had so often traversed alone, to a ground cloth we had spread nearby, representing the common ground of community. We had invited family and other loved ones to contribute a poem for this day, which I had bound into a book. I presented my dear friend with this book of blessings as we sat sheltered by the trees and shared celebratory food and drink.
* * *
There are few resources more wonderful than John O'Donohue's Book of Blessings: To Bless This Space Between Us. My gratitude to the memory of Mr O'Donohue for helping to bring the art of the blessing into secular spaces.
What is unlived within you that wants to blossom? Facing upstream, open to the flow, my friend responded to this and other prompts with his intentions for this next phase of his life. As he scattered the ashes from the objects he had burned, we turned to O’Donohue for one last blessing, the Blessing for a New Beginning.
Part 4: Celebrating New Beginnings
Finally, we moved from the transitional space of the bridge, which my friend had so often traversed alone, to a ground cloth we had spread nearby, representing the common ground of community. We had invited family and other loved ones to contribute a poem for this day, which I had bound into a book. I presented my dear friend with this book of blessings as we sat sheltered by the trees and shared celebratory food and drink.
* * *
There are few resources more wonderful than John O'Donohue's Book of Blessings: To Bless This Space Between Us. My gratitude to the memory of Mr O'Donohue for helping to bring the art of the blessing into secular spaces.
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