Growing Together

Spirit of Life,
Great Immensity of Love that birthed the stars
and washes through our bodies
with every beat of our hearts:

Help us know you as the greening force
that pushes tender shoots through hard pavement.
They penetrate and then grow, and grow,
prying apart the hardest places.
Lush green life reclaims ugly surfaces.

May it be so in our own lives.
May we welcome in the seeds of love.
May we encourage them to take root.
May they take hold and pry apart
any hard casings on our hearts,
anything that separates us, one from another.

Cracked open, may we all weep
with one another’s sorrow.
May we all laugh
with one another’s joy.
May we grow together, our roots intertwined,
beautiful with the life we share.

Blessed be.

Cottonwood Seeds

Spirit of Life, Source of our delight:

Now is the time in the high mountains
when cottonwood trees
send out their seeds.

Little bits of white fluff
floating in a steady stream,
rising together:
eventually they will arrive
somewhere.

They are borne along by the air to some new place,
where they will take root
and grow into something beautiful.

How lovely to float like that.
How lovely to float steadily along
in the company of others,
rising,
moving together,
toward a place of transformation and new growth.

Spirit of Life,
when we feel dragged down by our sorrows
when we feel heavy with the weight of our concerns
may we remember the cottonwood seeds.

May we too float
knowing we are together
knowing we will land safely
knowing we will grow into something beautiful.

Blessed be.