A quiet morning dawns at Hope Springs. My body’s habits of rising at 6 a.m. remain, even though I can feel the physical strains of heightened community, late nights by the fire, deepening conversations and spiritual intimacies with one another, with the land. Time has expanded into pauses, slower breathing, easier listening to gifting and challenging things.
A spirit-friend meandered outside of his room, carrying shoes for perhaps a morning walk? He saw me, approached, and inquired about private space, or no…? On the chance that someone might appear, I had wiped down another deck chair. “There’s even coffee inside,” I smiled, offering. Delighted, he went in for a cup of coffee and we settled into the deck space together. Something deeply familiar came with him, though inarticulate and slow to reveal itself.We named the gifts of chance encounters, made more likely by simply being present to whomever comes into your path. Something stirred awareness of my own upcoming family reunion, and I spoke the well-traveled pattern of arising early for “coffee with the uncles.” Or maybe it was the familiar feeling of shared morning coffee that brought the naming of the family reunion in July. Either way, a sadness arose, so I named a bit of the Holy Saturday journey to say good-bye to the first uncle to transition, Karl. We clinked our coffee cups “to Uncle Karl then…” I named the awareness deepening in me about the generational transition that has now begun. He spoke some of his own experience with generational transitions.
Then we were joined by a third, finding ourselves in a bit of song before they headed off together for the morning-leader check-in. As they departed the deck for the dining hall, a question arose in me…What is this familiar feeling…? And I smiled.
This feels like a family reunion.
The breathing-meditation practice led by another spirit-friend was about to begin, so I wandered over to the Spirit-House to enter in. As usually happens in a deepening body practice, I entered in and the tears came with some force. I felt my awareness shift into awareness of the ancestral plane, and wondered whether I could feel Uncle Karl. Nope. I had had a hard time feeling him anyway, even when we shared physical presence. But then another image arose…
…my father and his two other brothers…I felt them all immediately, viscerally. Like they were all in the Spirit House with me. Something inside of me eased…the sadness took on a sweetness too. A felt-sense that our connection will only deepen as each transitions, in his own time. Like our journey together has really only just begun. How seamless the world can become, if we let it. If we lean into what our bodies know that our minds will try to distance…
I sat-up slowly after the meditation practice, sitting in a circle of relatively new spirit-companions, smiling.
Yep. This feels like a family reunion.
I smiled all the way to breakfast.