02/01/2008

REBECCA'S 2008 NEW YEAR FULL MOON GREETING

Dear Sisters,

There was a light dusting of snow when I looked out from the porch early this morning. I couldn't see La Luna, but could see her effect on the snow.

A great, generous, kind, intelligent person has passed over. John O'Donohue, poet, philosopher, author of “Anam Cara” died last week. He brought back the old Celtic traditions, the more feminine side of that most Catholic country, Ireland. Many of you may have read his books or been to his readings. He carried with him a sense that anything could sweep down from above, or from underneath the door that would change one's life in an instant. He was my friend.

We would laugh and talk and Tom, my sweet husband, loved him too, for you could look far and wide and not find anyone as precious and big and open hearted and open armed. he sent me to my kind and smart and savvy agent who looks after me in the world of publishing, who waits patiently for my books that come slowly after long literary gestations.

So I keep a candle lit for him, not for me. I have no idea of the adventures which await him now that he has left his physical body. Buddhism holds that the soul has 47 days in which to circle the world in order to finish any life, any business that it has to complete with this world so that it may leave easily without any mourning or yearning and can thus pass into whatever waits to a place.

Go to him. Read John’s work. To “Anam Cara” first. It may not be the easiest reading you will ever do, but if you stay with it, it just might be the richest you may ever encounter.

And so during these days of our first full moon in 2008 I bid goodbye to a dear friend and teacher. Even as I welcome you to this new year, may it be filled with an awareness of how short our stay is here for we do not own these physical bodies which hold our souls. We merely rent them for a brief time to do the only thing that we are meant to do -- that is to love and love and love more.

84,000 blessings,

Rebecca