“May this house shelter your life.
When you come in home here,
May all the weight of the world
Fall from your shoulders.
May your heart be tranquil here,
Blessed by peace the world cannot give.
…..May this be a safe place
Full of understanding and acceptance,
Where you can be as you are,
Without the need of any mask
Of pretense or image.”
~John O’Donohue

This morning I am blessed to be in my house. It is quiet here this morning. Seattle Son has gone back to school for his final year of college. His gentle spirit still lingers in the air. The activity of those headed off to work has settled. No one else is here except the big black dog and ginger cat who are soaking up the sunshine that is floating through the windows. They have appropriately made beds in the warming rays of this autumn morning. The only sounds I hear are the ticking clock, some distant beep of large construction machinery lobbing its warning and the rise and fall of my own breath.

It is pure gift to sit this morning in this house I also call sanctuary. It is the place where I can allow the ‘weight of the world to fall from my shoulders.’ I pray it is also such a place for my family and for those who cross its threshold. The fact that this experience is privilege is not lost on me. I think of all the houses where it is not so.

Many times as I make my way around our cities I find myself looking at houses and wondering about the life that happens in them. Looking at the yard, the front door, what is or isn’t planted outside can give hints about the living that resides. I marvel that I know nothing of those within who carry out their daily tasks much as I do and yet we are traveling companions on this planet. It softens my heart to any judgments I might be inclined to make about tidiness or upkeep. What may be happening within those walls might break my heart or fill me with awe.

Aside from my college and early adult years, I have really lived in only three houses. Each have been sanctuaries for me. Another blessing. There is nothing extravagant or showy about these houses. They have simply been the nests in which I have been able to find a ‘tranquility and peace’ which is often counter to the world’s busyness and rough edges.

Is there a house that has held you in such a way? Are there walls that welcome you when your life is overflowing with sorrow or jumping for joy? This blessing written by Irish poet John O’Donohue who had such a deep sense of the importance of home ends with these words: ‘May you have eyes to see that no visitor arrives without a gift and no guest leaves without a blessing.’,

Today may be a perfect day to walk about the place you call home and offer a prayer for its gift to you. In each of the rooms you might also offer a word for those who do not have the privilege of such shelter. May you, may I, may we have the eyes to see the gifts of the visitors and the blessings of each guest who enters these places that nest us.

Blessed be.

My lovely calendar whose wisdom I have passed along in these pages before offered this message today: ” Have beginner’s mind today about something.” I smiled when I read it because I had just returned to the house after seeing a few of the neighborhood children off on their first day of school. Most had had a first day of school before but one was a first-timer, a kindergartner. Watching them gather and place their backpacks in the line that would lead them to the bus, I thought of the many things they would be experiencing, the many beginnings that were about to occupy their minds.

Thinking about their upcoming adventures led me to ponder what it might mean to have a beginner’s mind again.My prayer is that a beginner’s mind is an open mind, one that is not filled with preconceived notions as to how things might go or, even worse, how they should. A beginner’s mind does not carry many ideas of the right or wrong way something must be done but is instead filled with a curiosity that leads a person down new and unchartered paths. This kind of curiosity almost always has room for creativity and often is the place of discovering fresh ideas, new thoughts, better ways. These are the hopes I have for all those beginning their new year of school.

An experience of beginner’s mind is often difficult to walk into as an adult. It is too easy to fall into patterns of the same old, same old, every day. Getting up on the same side of the bed, having the same breakfast as yesterday, driving the same route to work, moving papers from one side of the desk to the other without any thought of trying something new. It can be difficult to remember and tap into that source of being a beginner at anything.

But what if at least one day a week, we got up and decided it was ‘Beginner’s Mind Day’? What if we walked into the day without any preconceived ideas about what might happen or how the day would go? What if instead we saw each and every activity of our day as a first-time? Would we choose to brush our teeth before our hair? How would coffee taste without cream or with sugar, or in some way different than yesterday’s cup? What if I took the longer, more scenic route to the office? What might I learn about the morning,about myself? What if we declared, say, Tuesday as the day we would do something in a completely new way or, (heaven forbid!) do something never done before? What about taking the task you do without thinking and pay particular attention to each and every detail? Would you enjoy it more or choose never to do it again?

See all the questions ‘beginner’s mind’ can bring to birth? I hope the young ones headed off to their first day of school arrive at home overflowing with a mountain of questions of their own. It is always good to begin a new year of learning with lots of tantalizing questions floating about in your head. I hope their beginner’s mind got a good work out today leaving them pumped with excitement about what beginnings they will embark upon tomorrow.

Beginner’s mind almost always requires a letting go. Letting go of control. Letting go of perfection. Letting go of striving. Letting go of order. Letting go of the past and the future and being present to the time at hand. Which is, after all, the only time we can be certain of. This letting go was brought home to me just as the children stepped onto the bus this morning. As I watched from my front door, the bus pulled away filled with a community of beginner’s minds. As the motor roared and the familiar yellow rectangle moved down the street, a cascade of red and yellow leaves let go from our maple tree, falling silently and gently to the waiting ground below.

Beginner’s mind was revving up in the letting go of this new season.