Blessings

"Your soul knows the geography of your destiny. Your soul alone has the map of your future, therefore you can trust this indirect, oblique side of yourself. If you do, it will take you where you need to go, but more important it will teach you a kindness of rhythm in your journey" (John O'Donohue).
I am thinking of blessings this morning--of goodbyes and thresholds and journeys and geography. My friend Pam Arnold was traveling in California when she learned that I had signed a year lease on a studio in Albuquerque. "Send me the address," she said, "and I'll take pictures on my way back to Louisiana." "Oh, good!" I said. "You can bless the apartment while you're there." And she did, emailing me later that she placed her hand upon the door and said a prayer for that my new home will be joyous and that my needs will be met. Pam's blessing took the form of a prayer, but yours need not. As I see it, blessings are ecumenical and universal invocations of divine good--often beginning with the word, "may." May you know peace. May you know hope. May your needs be met in this Albuquerque abode. May you find joy within and without these walls. I love the geography of Pam's blessing; she stood at the very threshold of my new home and placed her hand on the very door I will open to the unknown. Not completely unknown, mind you. When spending the summer in Albuquerque in 2015, I actually looked at this very apartment. It was tempting, but the tug of grandmother outweighed that of the desert. Four years later, however, having made the decision to move, I felt the thrill of synchronicity when I found the apartment advertised on Craigslist. It's not that the place is grand or all that I wanted; it doesn't boast a washer or dyer, for example. Still, the historic. adobe building is affordable and in a walkable neighborhood and, perhaps most importantly, oddly familiar. May we all find a kindness of rhythm in our journeys.