Blessing of the Website

This website, online for the past two weeks, is a key path for sharing my ministry with the world. To honor and strengthen this path as I begin to journey on it, Helen and I hosted a celebration with dear friends at our house last night. The highlight was a ritual for blessing of the website. The ritual started with Helen reading the John O’Donohue poem “For a New Beginning” (verses below.) Indeed, this is a time of new beginning.

Then, with the website open and magnified on our TV screen, I brought up the key service pages (plus the Blog page) one by one. With each page, I first did a sage smudging to enhance the spiritual energy around that page, followed by a brief conversation around its content and goals. Then, the group offered this prayer: “Through [name of website page] may you serve others with kindness, wisdom, compassion, and love. And may they find peace, healing, meaning and joy.”

To illuminate the intention of the prayer, I then lit a candle for the page. The last part of the ritual for each page was where we all said “May this website page be blessed, and may it bring blessings to others.”

May this website truly serve as a path for hope, inspiration, and love for all who come here.

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For a New Beginning – John O’Donohue

In out of the way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness grow inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the grey promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.