| I love to intention set on the new moon with you all. I adore looping in a tradition that centers nature and mindfulness. Yes, I missed February’s new moon, AND I wanted to give one little glimmer into what I deeply noticed. I kept witnessing the power of kindness. The acts of connection that felt so deeply human. Kindness is all around us. Kindness feels like spring. You know the feeling: song birds singing in the morning tulips on your table bursting with color to smell something other than exhaust outside snow banks melted so you can park against the curb again refusing to wear snow gear another day closing your eyes to feel the sun on your face ending a yoga class and it’s still light spring eclipse busting open any illusion Naturally I went looking for a poem that encompassed the kindness that radiates from the twin cities’ people. And I found one that has been really speaking to my heart. I hope you enjoy. |
KindnessNaomi Shihab Nye Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness. How you ride and ride thinking the bus will never stop, the passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out the window forever.Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho lies dead by the side of the road. You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed through the night with plans and the simple breath that kept him alive.Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. You must wake up with sorrow. You must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows and you see the size of the cloth. Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore, only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread, only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say It is I you have been looking for, and then goes with you everywhere like a shadow or a friend. |
Kindness: February Theme
