“For Equilibrium, a Blessing:
Like the joy of the sea coming home to shore,
May the relief of laughter rinse through your soul.

As the wind loves to call things to dance,
May your gravity by lightened by grace.

Like the dignity of moonlight restoring the earth,
May your thoughts incline with reverence and respect.

As water takes whatever shape it is in,
So free may you be about who you become.

As silence smiles on the other side of what's said,
May your sense of irony bring perspective.

As time remains free of all that it frames,
May your mind stay clear of all it names.

May your prayer of listening deepen enough
to hear in the depths the laughter of god.”
― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“This is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes.

Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.

If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.”
― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“For Someone Awakening To The Trauma of His or Her Past:

For everything under the sun there is a time.
This is the season of your awkward harvesting,
When the pain takes you where you would rather not go,

Through the white curtain of yesterdays to a place
You had forgotten you knew from the inside out;
And a time when that bitter tree was planted

That has grown always invisibly beside you
And whose branches your awakened hands
Now long to disentangle from your heart.

You are coming to see how your looking often darkened
When you should have felt safe enough to fall toward love,
How deep down your eyes were always owned by something

That faced them through a dark fester of thorns
Converting whoever came into a further figure of the wrong;
You could only see what touched you as already torn.

Now the act of seeing begins your work of mourning.
And your memory is ready to show you everything,
Having waited all these years for you to return and know.

Only you know where the casket of pain is interred.
You will have to scrape through all the layers of covering
And according to your readiness, everything will open.

May you be blessed with a wise and compassionate guide
Who can accompany you through the fear and grief
Until your heart has wept its way to your true self.

As your tears fall over that wounded place,
May they wash away your hurt and free your heart.
May your forgiveness still the hunger of the wound

So that for the first time you can walk away from that place,
Reunited with your banished heart, now healed and freed,
And feel the clear, free air bless your new face.”
― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“Each of us is an artist of our days; the greater our integrity and awareness, the more original and creative our time will become.”
― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“Blessed be the mind that dreamed the day
the blueprint of your life
would begin to glow on earth,
illuminating all the faces and voices
that would arrive to invite
your soul to growth.

Praised be your father and mother,
who loved you before you were,
and trusted to call you here
with no idea who you would be.

Blessed be those who have loved you
into becoming who you were meant to be,
blessed be those who have crossed your life
with dark gifts of hurt and loss
that have helped to school your mind
in the art of disappointment.

When desolation surrounded you,
blessed be those who looked for you
and found you, their kind hands
urgent to open a blue window
in the gray wall formed around you.

Blessed be the gifts you never notice,
your health, eyes to behold the world,
thoughts to countenance the unknown,
memory to harvest vanished days,
your heart to feel the world’s waves,
your breath to breathe the nourishment
of distance made intimate by earth.

On this echoing-day of your birth,
may you open the gift of solitude
in order to receive your soul;
enter the generosity of silence
to hear your hidden heart;
know the serenity of stillness
to be enfolded anew
by the miracle of your being.”
― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“TO COME HOME TO YOURSELF May all that is unforgiven in you Be released. May your fears yield Their deepest tranquillities. May all that is unlived in you Blossom into a future Graced with love.”
― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“For Longing

Blessed be the longing that brought you here
And quickens your soul with wonder.

May you have the courage to listen to the voice of desire
That disturbs you when you have settled for something safe.

May you have the wisdom to enter generously into your own unease
To discover the new direction your longing wants you to take.

May the forms of your belonging—in love, creativity, and friendship—
Be equal to the grandeur and the call of your soul.

May the one you long for long for you.

May your dreams gradually reveal the destination of your desire.

May a secret Providence guide your thought and nurture your feeling.

May your mind inhabit life with the sureness with which your body inhabits the world.

May your heart never be haunted by ghost-structures of old damage.

May you come to accept your longing as divine urgency.

May you know the urgency with which God longs for you.”
― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“May I have the courage today To live the life that I would love, To postpone my dream no longer But do at last what I came here for And waste my heart on fear no more.”
― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“And when the work of grieving is done,
The wound of loss will heal
And you will have learned
To wean your eyes
From that gap in the air
And be able to enter the hearth
In your soul where your loved one
Has awaited your return
All the time.”
― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“We seldom notice how each day is a holy place Where the eucharist of the ordinary happens, Transforming our broken fragments Into an eternal continuity that keeps us.”
― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“FOR THE DYING May death come gently toward you, Leaving you time to make your way Through the cold embrace of fear To the place of inner tranquillity. May death arrive only after a long life To find you at home among your own With every comfort and care you require. May your leave-taking be gracious, Enabling you to hold dignity Through awkwardness and illness. May you see the reflection Of your life’s kindness and beauty In all the tears that fall for you. As your eyes focus on each face, May your soul take its imprint, Drawing each image within As companions for the journey. May you find for each one you love A different locket of jeweled words To be worn around the heart To warm your absence. May someone who knows and loves The complex village of your heart Be there to echo you back to yourself And create a sure word-raft To carry you to the further shore. May your spirit feel The surge of true delight When the veil of the visible Is raised, and you glimpse again The living faces Of departed family and friends. May there be some beautiful surprise Waiting for you inside death, Something you never knew or felt, Which with one simple touch, Absolves you of all loneliness and loss, As you quicken within the embrace For which your soul was eternally made. May your heart be speechless At the sight of the truth Of all belief had hoped, Your heart breathless In the light and lightness Where each and everything Is at last its true self Within that serene belonging That dwells beside us On the other side Of what we see.”
― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“I am lonesome for all the conversations we never had.”
― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“Perhaps the art of harvesting the secret riches of our lives is best achieved when we place profound trust in the act of beginning. Risk might be our greatest ally. To live a truly creative life, we always need to cast a critical look at where we presently are, attempting always to discern where we have become stagnant and where new beginning might be ripening. There can be no growth if we do not remain open and vulnerable to what is new and different. I have never seen anyone take a risk for growth that was not rewarded a thousand times over.”
― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“There is great beauty in the notion of desire. Each of us is a child of the desire of our parents for each other. We are creatures of desire because we are creations of desire. The human heart discovers its most touching music when desire and love inform each other. When we love, we leave our separate solitudes and come toward union, where we complement each other. It is this ancient desire in every heart to discover and come home to its lost other half that awakens and activates its capacity for love and belonging. There are certain things that can happen to us only in solitude, and every life needs a rhythm of solitude in order to experience this. However, the experience of self-discovery, psychological integration, and spiritual growth can happen to us only when our desire draws us out of our shells and toward the precarious and life-giving sanctuary of another heart.”
― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“All you can depend on now is that
Sorrow will remain faithful to itself.
More than you, it knows its way
And will find the right time
To pull and pull the rope of grief
Until that coiled hill of tears
Has reduced to its last drop.”
― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“FOR SUFFERING May you be blessed in the holy names of those Who, without you knowing it, Help to carry and lighten your pain. May you know serenity When you are called To enter the house of suffering. May a window of light always surprise you. May you be granted the wisdom To avoid false resistance; When suffering knocks on the door of your life, May you glimpse its eventual gifts. May you be able to receive the fruits of suffering. May memory bless and protect you With the hard-earned light of past travail; To remind you that you have survived before And though the darkness now is deep, You will soon see approaching light. May the grace of time heal your wounds. May you know that though the storm might rage, Not a hair of your head will be harmed.”
― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“1 Somewhere, out at the edges, the night Is turning and the waves of darkness Begin to brighten the shore of dawn The heavy dark falls back to earth And the freed air goes wild with light, The heart fills with fresh, bright breath And thoughts stir to give birth to color. 2 I arise today In the name of Silence Womb of the Word, In the name of Stillness Home of Belonging, In the name of the Solitude Of the Soul and the Earth. I arise today Blessed by all things, Wings of breath, Delight of eyes, Wonder of whisper, Intimacy of touch, Eternity of soul, Urgency of thought, Miracle of health, Embrace of God. May I live this day Compassionate of heart, Clear in word, Gracious in awareness, Courageous in thought, Generous in love.”
― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“Rilke recommended that when life became turbulent and troublesome, it was wise to stay close to one simple thing in nature.”
― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“And when we come to search for God, Let us first be robed in night, Put on the mind of morning To feel the rush of light Spread slowly inside The color and stillness Of a found world.”
― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“May the expectation in other eyes Never decide how you are to be;”
― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“ON THE DEATH OF THE BELOVED Though we need to weep your loss, You dwell in that safe place in our hearts Where no storm or night or pain can reach you. Your love was like the dawn Brightening over our lives, Awakening beneath the dark A further adventure of color. The sound of your voice Found for us A new music That brightened everything. Whatever you enfolded in your gaze Quickened in the joy of its being; You placed smiles like flowers On the altar of the heart. Your mind always sparkled With wonder at things. Though your days here were brief, Your spirit was alive, awake, complete. We look toward each other no longer From the old distance of our names; Now you dwell inside the rhythm of breath, As close to us as we are to ourselves. Though we cannot see you with outward eyes, We know our soul’s gaze is upon your face, Smiling back at us from within everything To which we bring our best refinement. Let us not look for you only in memory, Where we would grow lonely without you. You would want us to find you in presence, Beside us when beauty brightens, When kindness glows And music echoes eternal tones. When orchids brighten the earth, Darkest winter has turned to spring; May this dark grief flower with hope In every heart that loves you. May you continue to inspire us: To enter each day with a generous heart. To serve the call of courage and love Until we see your beautiful face again In that land where there is no more separation, Where all tears will be wiped from our mind, And where we will never lose you again.”
― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“Wherever one person takes another into the care of their heart, they have the power to bless.”
― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“THE INNER HISTORY OF A DAY No one knew the name of this day; Born quietly from deepest night, It hid its face in light, Demanded nothing for itself, Opened out to offer each of us A field of brightness that traveled ahead, Providing in time, ground to hold our footsteps And the light of thought to show the way. The mind of the day draws no attention; It dwells within the silence with elegance”
― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“The Greeks believed that time had secret structure. There was the moment of Epiphany when time suddenly opened and something was revealed in luminous clarity. There was the moment of krisis when time got entangled and directions became confused and contradictory. There was also the moment of kairos; this was the propitious moment. Time opened up in kindness and promise. All the energies cohered to offer a fecund occasion of initiative, creativity, and promise. Part of the art of living wisely is to learn to recognize and attend to such profound openings in one’s life.”
― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“[...] do not damage yourselves
By attending only at the hungry altar
Of regret and anger and guilt.”
― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“We have fallen out of belonging. Consequently, when we stand before crucial thresholds in our lives, we have no rituals to protect, encourage, and guide us as we cross over into the unknown.”
― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“Within the grip of winter, it is almost impossible to imagine the spring. The gray perished landscape is shorn of color. Only bleakness meets the eye; everything seems severe and edged. Winter is the oldest season; it has some quality of the absolute. Yet beneath the surface of winter, the miracle of spring is already in preparation; the cold is relenting; seeds are wakening up. Colors are beginning to imagine how they will return. Then, imperceptibly, somewhere one bug opens and the symphony of renewal is no longer reversible. From the black heart of winter a miraculous, breathing plenitude of color emerges.

The beauty of nature insists on taking its time. Everything is prepared. Nothing is rushed. The rhythm of emergence is a gradual slow beat always inching its way forward; change remains faithful to itself until the new unfolds in the full confidence of true arrival. Because nothing is abrupt, the beginning of spring nearly always catches us unawares. It is there before we see it; and then we can look nowhere without seeing it.”
― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“May we all receive blessing upon blessing. And may we realize our power to bless, heal, and renew one another.”
― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“It was Kierkegaard who said that life must be lived forward, but it can only be understood backward.”
― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

“It is such a privilege to have people who continue each day to bless us with their love and prayer. These inner friends of the heart confer on us inestimable gifts.”
― John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings