Have you ever stretched out your back on a yoga ball—or a giant pumpkin? Sometimes stretching ourselves is uncomfortable and scary, and we resist trying something new or threatening. But sometimes the stretch is a relief, releasing us from habits that make us stiff and unyielding.
How will you stretch yourself today?
The blackberries that ripened in the summer sun meet their end in a pot stirred by a grinning skull. They will lose their individuality, be crushed to something unrecognizable—and be preserved to be re-born in deeper sweetness some winter day. If they had stayed on the vine they would have simply withered away. Sometimes the radical change we fear opens us to undreamed possibilities.
Where do you see radical change in your life or the world around you?
The Mexican celebration of El día de los muertos honors loved ones who have died, not with black shrouds and mourning, but with a colorful celebration featuring bright orange marigolds, colorful paper cut-outs and sugar skulls that are meant to be eaten. Death brings painful loss, but when we accept it as a natural part of the cycle of life then it becomes easier to invite the ghosts and skeletons who surround us to the party.
Whose memory will you celebrate and welcome today?
Happy Halloween! Or should that be “Scary Halloween!”? Somehow it seems odd that we have a fun, child-centered holiday about spooks and ghouls and the spirits of the dead, but there’s a lot to be said for trying to find joy in the midst of fear.
How can you turn a trick into a treat today?
On Halloween we scare ourselves with skeletons, and as the trees lose their leaves we may think the bare branches ominous or dull. But there is also beauty in the bones of things, in the spare shape of the structures at the center.
In times of loss, have you found beauty in the essentials that remained?
