Coming home to a new rhythm

coming-home-to-a-new-rhythm

I’ve been looking forward to this last verse of John O’Donohue’s blessing For a New Beginning all week!

These words have drawn me through the reality and vulnerability of the earlier verses.

Knowing it would be worth it in the end.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

We are living through a transition time where the invitation to step into the unknown and unknowing pulls against the apparent comfort of remaining where we are.

Yet this holding back isn’t real. It’s an illusion, made more evident by the seismic shifts all around us.

So instead, let’s stir our spirits for the adventure and find our fellow travellers because there is an ease in creating a new rhythm in the unknown territory if we do it together.

And let’s open our senses to hear the calling of the world for a new beginning. One that is shaped very differently from the one we’re leaving.

For each of us has a role in the ongoing creation of the world. We just need to be open to our new identity and try out our unique voices because this isn’t only about us.

For a New Beginning

A poem from John O’Donohue, published in Benedictus: A Book of Blessings, in 2007.

In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the grey promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening up before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

These are more than good words – they are food for the journey.

Joining you from a little valley in South West Wales.

~

This week

Daily reflections on the blessing from John O’Donohue, above.