A new Celtic blessing

Winter has come to us in my current place
on our curved world,
and all is cloaked with snow,
changing all the surfaces of things.
I fear it, but I am also in awe
of its rampant beauty.

Weather is a blessing
in the midst of transient times.
It is impossible not to take weather seriously,
to avoid being pushed into awareness of the present moment,
whether that moment be drenched in sweat,
soaked in rain,
or chilled and frosty.

Weather brings me back from my daydreams,
my wanderings between what I have left behind and what is to come,
and leaves me in this very instant, shocked by the coldness of the air
in my lungs, the tingling of my hands, clad in my grandmother's scarlet
gloves...

Weather reminds me that I am here, now. For now.
For another six weeks, and then I will
be in a dizzingly different climate.
But the weather holds
me in the present moment,
nearing the end of this task,
yet with my hands still so very full.

And with this thought of weather on my mind,
I was struck again by Celtic prayer, by
its rootedness to our geography...
Here is a prayer by J. Philip Newell,
a spiritual writer whose work I highly recommend.

The blessings of heaven,
the blessings of earth,
the blessings of sea and of sky.
On those we love this day and
on every human family
the gifts of heaven,
the gifts of earth,
the gifts of sea and of sky.

May they come to you.