The longer we are together

the larger death grows around us.

How many we know by now

who are dead! We, who were young,

now count the cost of having been-

Our hair turn white with our ripening as though to fly away in some

coming wind, bearing the seed

of what we know. It was bitter to learn

that we come to death as we come

to love, bitter to face

the just and solving welcome

that death prepares. But that is bitter

only to the ignorant, who pray

it will not happen. Having come

the bitter way to better prayer, we have

the sweetness of ripening.

~Wendell Berry

for all of those moments when the world seemed to be so bright, light and to last forever….

inquiry for today~  sit with one of these questions below…….just be with it…not really answering it….just allow it to fill you up….

and it does not shy away

Meditation on death is one of the special conditions that facilitates spiritual transformation, illumination. Wisdom traditions have employed it as skillful means for millennia. It is, at the end of life, one of the most powerful of the special conditions that facilitates the grace in dying. When we are deeply aware of our own impermanence, every fleeting moment is recognized as precious. Our desire to be present in each moment amplifies. Contemplating the fact that we truly do not know if we will still be alive to this human body with the next breath, we can witness a stunning decrease in our attachment to and interest in anything but now. Presence begins to blossom. What am I doing? What do I want? What does this all mean? What is it all about? What is spirit? What is self? Who or what is the “I” that is asking the questions? Our desire to explore,to inquire, to see, intensifies in urgency.  ~Kathleen Dowling Singh