“Love is death’s most precious gift to us. Love, not money, possessions, career, social esteem and the many other alluring outer trappings of life, is the balm that soothes us in the face of death. Love is what connects us to those who have passed on. Love calls us to reach out and hold each other in our grief. Love is what joins us heart to heart and soul to soul to another. Love is our best offering from our Deep Self to the world.

Samhain is a time to contemplate the mysteries of death, not from a place of fear and resistance, but from an acceptance of death as a teacher and guide for the living. Yes, we are born into life and born into death, and it is this very, inescapable fact that makes every moment so precious, fragile and bittersweet beautiful.

Death isn’t a summons to fear, it is an invitation to love, deeply, wildly, joyfully. And when death seeks us out at the end of our days, let our last breath be a prayer to love.”

Karen Clark

“Out of the depths I call to you; God give me power today.
In this dark time let me be true, till storms have blown away.
From everything and everyone, from all life left alone;
alone, despairing, faith undone, my heart has turned to stone.
Beside me only you remain, my comforter and friend;
your faithfulness my heart sustains, “I know this night will end!”
The struggle of my life and pain fade in the cosmic scheme:
a glimmer in a drop of rain, lost in the battle’s dream.
Again, I come to pray in haste, O God, thanks be to thee;
may all suffer find your grace, and may I faithful be.”

Norbert Fabián Čapek, founder of the Prague Unitarian Church, whose death certificate is dated 80 years ago today, 30th October 1942, although it is likely that he was gassed two weeks earlier, on 12th October, at Dachau.

“You say you must
learn to embrace
your dark side.
But why did
you need
to take sides?
Darkness is not the
absence of light.
Darkness is
the womb of light.
Be the sparkling
vortex of creation,
a thousand-armed
whirler,
spun from the night
at your core.
That is where
the Mother is.”

Fred LaMotte

“I am still every age that I have been. Because I was once a child, I am always a child. Because I was once a searching adolescent, given to moods and ecstasies, these are still part of me, and always will be… This does not mean that I ought to be trapped or enclosed in any of these ages… Far too many people misunderstand what ‘putting away childish things’ means, and think that forgetting what it is like to think and feel and touch and smell and taste and see and hear like a three-year-old or a thirteen-year-old or a twenty-three-year-old means being grownup. When I’m with these people I, like the kids, feel that if this is what it means to be a grown-up, then I don’t ever want to be one. Instead of which, if I can retain a child’s awareness and joy, and ‘be’ fifty-one, then I will really learn what it means to be grownup.”

Madeleine L’Engle

“Remember, remember, this is now, and now, and now. Live it, feel it, cling to it. I want to become acutely aware of all I’ve taken for granted.”

Sylvia Plath, born on this day in 1932

“Deep listening is an art that Nature invites us to reclaim so we can live with greater presence, compassion, respect and belonging upon our animate Earth. We practice deep listening by slowing down and using all our senses when we are in Nature. Deep listening increases our capacity to hear our inner wisdom and guidance, and inspires us to act in ways that respect and honour Nature… By cultivating the art of deep listening when we are in Nature, we become more present, awake, and available to all of Life. And we, in turn, become more fully alive.”

Jackie Stewart

A blessing for Diwali by Satya Kalra

“May the lamps of love and devotion burn brightly in your heart
May the light of understanding shine in your mind
May the light of harmony glow in your home
May the bright rays of service shine forth ceaselessly from your hands
May your smile, your words and your actions be as sweet
May Maha Lakshmi bring you the true wealth of peace, health, happiness, and love.”

“Nice distinctions are troublesome. It is so much easier to say that a thing is black than to discriminate the particular shade of brown, blue, or green to which it really belongs. It is so much easier to make up your mind that your neighbour is good for nothing, than to enter into all the circumstances that would oblige you to modify that opinion.”

George Eliot (nom de plume of Mary Ann Evans)

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

“Ordinary Things

‘There are three slender things that support the world: the slender stream of cow’s milk into a pail; the slender blade of green corn in the ground; the slender thread running over the hands of a skilled woman.’ Ancient Irish triad

The comfort and nurture we derive from dairy products is the gift of the cow, that supremely important animal in the Celtic world. The cow, unit of wealth, was so highly prized that it is remembered in the heavens among Gaelic speakers who know the Milky Way as “the Way of the White Cow.” The fertility of the fields was always considered a measure of how committed a ruler or chieftain was to his land and people: poor crops were an indication of poor rulership. Along with the milk of the cow, the bannock (loaf) of bread made up the staple diet of most people before the advent of the New World potato, so grain was another measure of prosperity and well-being.

Before the coming of industrial looms, all clothing was made laboriously by hand. The woman of the house (with the help of her daughters) clothed her entire family; she would take the unwashed wool, comb and card it, and then time-consumingly spin it from the distaff until it could be labour-intensively woven on a hand-loom. That wool kept the cold out, but the greatest skill went into weaving fine linen garments for wear next to the skin. It is by the help of the ordinary things that much of own living is supported. In different countries, there are different staple grains and foodstuffs, different materials. From their slender existence our own is sustained.

What three ordinary things are the supporters of your life?”

“There is one art of which people should be masters – the art of reflection.”

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, born on this day in 1772