“To sing is to love and affirm,
to fly and to soar,
to coast into the hearts of the people
who listen
to tell them that life is to live,
that love is there,
that nothing is a promise,
but that beauty exists,
and must be hunted for and found…

To sing is to praise God and the daffodils,
and to praise God is to thank Him,
in every note within my small range,
and every color in the tones of my voice,
with every look into the eyes of my audience,
to thank Him.
Thank you, God, for letting me be born,
for giving me eyes to see the daffodils lean in the wind,
all my brothers, all my sisters,
for giving me ears to hear crying,
legs to come running,
hands to smooth damp hair,
a voice to laugh with and to sing with…
to sing to you and the daffodils.”

Joan Baez, born on this day in 1941

“”Do you wish to have love?
If you wish to have love, then you must leave love.”
Mechtild of Magdeburg

Letting go is a lesson all the mystics teach us. Mechtild reminds us of a deep paradox: we sometimes must leave love to have love. We need to let go of everything eventually, at some time, and so we need to develop the art of letting go. We will even, Mechtild is saying, at times need to let go of love. Ask yourself: What are my experiences of letting go? What follows after that? Have I had to let go of love? Why? Under what circumstances? How did it change me, deepen me, transform me? To let go can be to grow.”

From Christian Mystics by Matthew Fox

“The way to spiritual maturity is through personal and interactive experience. We travel to wisdom along the roads that our soul is drawn to explore, eventually evolving a map that we begin to understand. Even within formal religions this journey must take place; otherwise, spiritual stasis sets in.

In the old language of craftspeople, there are three aspects to the spiritual path: first we are the apprentice, painstakingly learning the basics of our craft; then we become journeymen, trained apprentices who are able to travel from place to place practising our craft; finally we become masters of our craft and are honoured as repositories of skill. Our journey to wisdom, to a mature spirit, must go through all three phases. And even when we have arrived spiritually, we face the devastating revelation that the spiritual path is just that – a path, not a destination.

This is a lonely realisation for many, yet we are not unaccompanied on our path. Upon it we encounter others who are travelling our way, some of whom will become close personal friends because they are spiritual kindred. These encounters and spiritual friendships mould our understandings as soul calls to soul, bringing new insights and concepts. By working with such friends, we realise that the validity of our journey, we absorb new concepts that modify our own, we become more practical and less theoretical, and we change and grow in spirit.”

From The Celtic Spirit: Daily Meditations for the Turning Year by Caitlin Matthews

Feast of Epiphany

“Find the door of your heart, and you will discover it is the door to the kingdom of God.”

St. John Chrysostom (c. 347 – 407)

“Work is not always required. There is such a thing as sacred idleness.”

George MacDonald (1824 – 1905), novelist, poet and Congregational minister

“To explain all nature is too difficult a task for any one man or even for any one age. ‘Tis much better to do a little with certainty, and leave the rest for others that come after you, than to explain all things by conjecture without making sure of any thing.”

Isaac Newton (1643 – 1727), born on this day

“I’ve learnt that no one is too small to make a difference…
The real power belongs to the people…
All we have to do is to wake up and change.”

Greta Thunberg, climate activist, born on this day in 2003

“You are waterproof. It is easier to learn to be soaked and happy than to learn how to stop the rain.”

Matt Haig

“What if one day
you come to the realization
that you never again have to explain
yourself away to anyone any more,
or that you no longer must carry
the burden of another’s false perception of you
or your own perceived inadequacies
and you could relax, finally,
in knowing you’re incredible
in the light you are standing in
at this moment.
And what if you go on to not care
about the judgments someone
else might have; that your life is
not full or amazing enough
or that
you no longer feel the need to endlessly
apologize for being human?
That day
has been graciously
waiting for you
to begin swimming in
its warm waters of love
and acceptance.”

Susan Frybort

“It has been one of the greatest and most difficult years of my life. I learned everything is temporary. Moments. Feelings. People. Flowers. I learned love is about giving- everything- and letting it hurt. I learned vulnerability is always the right choice because it is easy to be cold in a world that makes it so very difficult to remain soft. I learned all things come in twos: life and death, pain and joy, sugar and salt, me and you. It is the balance of the universe. It has been the year of hurting so bad but living so good, making friends out of strangers, making strangers out of friends. We must learn to focus on warm energy, always. Soak our limbs in it and become better lovers to the world, for if we can’t learn to be kinder to each other how will we ever learn to be kinder to the most desperate parts of ourselves.”

Rupi Kaur