Blessings!

My beloved Meditation teacher and friend at the Center for Mindful Living here in DC, Karolynn Coleman, who has studied Buddhist psychology for 30 years and trekked all over the Buddhist world, often shares these several beautiful verses at the end of our 30-minute meditations. She combines the words to an old Irish blessing, “The Long Time Sun,” with several verses of John O’Donohue’s gorgeous poem “Beannacht,” which means “blessing.”

The words fall softly around our shoulders like sunlight, like gold, nourishing us like water to plants.

Read the words slowly. Let them nourish you!

The Long Time Sun

May the long time sun shine upon you.
All love surround you.
And the pure light within you guide your way on.

From Beannacht by John O’Donohue

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.

The Long Time Sun is always there, even if it’s behind the clouds, warming the earth, warming and lighting our lives. The earth, the light, the ocean, our ancestors and the love we have given and received are there inside and outside us, strengthening and protecting us, our invisible cloak.

Thank you, Karolynn, for these and so many blessings!