a reflection
This last weekend brought up so many emotions. My 64th birthday was on the 6th June. I married my 1st husband 40 years ago on the 7th.
He would have been 67 on the 8th. He died in 2012 and I have written about it here and here.
I am astonished by the simultaneity of joy and grief. How these two emotions, that seem so opposite, have the same flavour. This year, blowing out the candles on my birthday cake with the grandsons he has never seen, I feel the intensity of both emotions and I find I can hold it all, appreciate it all, for both of us.
The new year really begins for me on my birthday and guiding words appear slowly in my journal. This year (Year 65, blimey! 😀) the words are Calm, Radiance, Joy and the flavour of it is simply this: being with my own experience over and over, without judging it or wishing it were different. Making room for all of it, knowing I can contain all of it. And in this ever-deepening knowledge is the calm and the radiance and the joy.
an invitation
Do you find you welcome some emotions and not others? I invite you to sit with Rumi’s poem The Guest House this week, in Coleman Barks’ lovely translation.
This being human is a guest house. Every morning a new arrival...
what nourished me this week
In Gift from the Sea, our very first book in the Reading at the Speed of Grace Book Club, Anne Morrow Lindbergh writes that she began the book for herself, to think out her own particular pattern of living, her own balance of life and work and relationships. I recognise that, I write these Grace Notes as my own reflections of a life lived at the speed of Grace. Lindbergh also notices that the women around her, even the ones who seemed to be ticking along imperturbably, were quietly trying to evolve a rhythm with more creative pauses in it, more adjustment to their own needs, a more alive relationship to themselves. I read that and thought: yes, we could all use more of that!
reading at the speed of grace
Join us to read Gift from the Sea slowly, one small chapter at a time, so that you give yourself space and time to find your own gift from the sea, this summer.
I would love you to come and read with us. When you join the Reading at the Speed of Grace Book Club, you will receive discussion questions, journaling prompts and practices, as well as an invitation to a members only chat and a monthly Zoom meeting to share your insights with other members. You will find the first week below.
100th woman
Our 100th woman meditation circle meets again this Sunday. I love this rhythm: as we learn to sit with our own experiences with curiosity, we develop loving kindness towards ourselves: this is the development of calm. Then our loving kindness expands to include others who experience the same things we do, then outward and outward until we include the whole world: this is the radiance. If you have never joined us, you would be so welcome to come and experience the joy of our beautiful meditation circle. See what I did there? 😀
with much love
Susan 🌹
These letters are one half of a conversation. Reply any time, I read every word and I always write back.