☀️ The Daily Boost #889

This blessing will reach you

The Daily Boost (published weekdays) is one of the newsletters of The Raft, the online community of author Phyllis Cole-Dai. We Rafters ride the river of life buoyed by music, poetry, and other arts, plus water-drops of wisdom. Most everything here is free, but patrons (paid subscribers) get some special perks as a gesture of gratitude.

Photo by CHIRAG K on Unsplash

BLESSING FOR THE LONGEST NIGHT
Jan Richardson

All throughout these months
as the shadows
have lengthened,
this blessing has been
gathering itself,
making ready,
preparing for
this night.

It has practiced
walking in the dark,
traveling with
its eyes closed,
feeling its way
by memory
by touch
by the pull of the moon
even as it wanes.

So believe me
when I tell you
this blessing will
reach you
even if you
have not light enough
to read it;
it will find you
even though you cannot
see it coming.

You will know
the moment of its
arriving
by your release
of the breath
you have held
so long;
a loosening
of the clenching
in your hands,
of the clutch
around your heart;
a thinning
of the darkness
that had drawn itself
around you.

This blessing
does not mean
to take the night away
but it knows
its hidden roads,
knows the resting spots
along the path,
knows what it means
to travel
in the company
of a friend.

So when
this blessing comes,
take its hand.
Get up.
Set out on the road
you cannot see.

This is the night
when you can trust
that any direction
you go,
you will be walking
toward the dawn.

(My thanks to Jan Richardson, via Heart Poems.)

The Gentle Nudge

• ANYTIME: Lay a blessing stone here. (Learn about our blessing-stone practice at this link.)

• THURSDAY: Poetry Pick-Me-Up (Zoom, 12:00-1:00PM Central, at this link)

• JANUARY 13: “The Unfolding” with Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. Details here.

• THRU 1/31/25: Write a cento for a midwinter cento celebration. Details here.