Opening Words and Chalice Lighting: LOST by David Wagoner
Stand still. The trees ahead and the bushes beside you
Are not lost. Where you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
Check-in
Reflection
Janus was the god who protected the gates and doors of cities and homes. There, over all portals, his strange image appeared. Now, the strange thing about Janus is this: he has two heads. One to look forward
and the other to look backward. In his right hand, he holds a key with which to close the door of the old and to open the door of the new. He holds the key, in fact, to the present, which is that magical interim in which we always live: that sacred place right smack in between the past and the future. If Janus’ bearded visage looks formidable, that may simply reflect how the past and the future appear to those caught between them in uncertain times.
Deep Sharing and Listening: Take time to think about your past, your future and the middle you are in. What do you want to hold on to? What do you want to let go of? Can you be like the lotus, at home in muddy waters?
Discussion
Housekeeping
Likes and Wishes
Closing Words: from Rainer Maria Rilke (Letters to a Young Poet)
"...be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."