March 2022

Spirit Garden Reflections

Cultivating Compassion

Nature does not hurry,
yet everything is accomplished.

-Lau Tzu

Welcome to the Reflection for March!

For many of us, the past two years has taught us how quickly our pace of life can change. I was reminded of that once again this month when I unexpectedly had a severe allergic reaction that has changed my plans for how my month would unfold. Rather than working on the many projects I had lined up, I found myself going to doctor’s offices, sleeping a lot and trying to stay awake long enough to read a few pages of a novel.

This experience has had me thinking of how we can be moving in one direction and then Life finds a way of slowing us down, or taking us down a different route. As I contemplated this, I was reminded of a poem I wrote in the early winter months. It was a reminder that our pace, our gait at which we move, can equally be changed by a moment of awe and wonder.

I had a very different Spirit Garden Reflection planned for this month, however, my energy levels have helped me create a different plan that I hope will give you a moment of pausing in wonder.

So, I offer you this poem that I wrote after an early, winter morning walk. I would invite you to spend time with the poem using the ancient rhythm of sacred reading and listening known as lectio divina.

This form of sacred reading and listening invites us to take a moment to settle ourselves, bringing our awareness more deeply into our heart space, before we read and listen.

Then, allow the words of the poem to wash over you, noticing if there is a word or a phrase that pulls you in, or seems to shimmer before you. Gently repeat this word or phrase to yourself as though getting to know it.

Then, listen to the poem a second time, and allow the word or phrase to unfold in your imagination, noticing what images arise or what feelings are stirred within you.

Next, allow yourself to sit with the word or image prayerfully and notice what response it evokes in you. Is there an inner movement that arises, such as an action or a new awareness that may assist you in the context of your life right now?

Finally, you are inviting to rest with your word or phrase as you bring your time to a close.

This form of sacred reading and listening can be a beautiful way of connecting to what the Divine presence is stirring within us, it can become a sacred conversation. We can read sacred texts and poems in this manner as a form of soul-sipping nourishment.

I hope that in reading this poem and listening to the recording in this slow and savouring way, that you might become connected to the places that cause you to pause and notice the beauty in your midst. In this way, may you receive some soul nourishment from experiencing a change in pace.

Many blessings,
Kathy

Sometimes I think there are only two instructions we need to follow to develop and deepen our spiritual life:
slow down and let go.

-Oriah Mountain Dreamer, The Dance: Moving to the Rhythms of Your True Self

Changing Pace

Listen to the poem, Changing Pace, by clicking on the audio file below. You may also wish to print a copy of the poem which you can do using the link below the audio file.

You are invited to create a comfortable space for yourself, perhaps light a candle and wrap a shawl around you as you create a sacred space for reflecting on this poem. May this be a nourishing and replenishing time of some soul tending.