Friday Notes, December 15, 2023
Dear Friends —
So we can all spend some time away from screens for a couple of weeks, this is the last post of 2023. For a head start in the right directions — outside into nature, inside into reflection — the gift of a poem:
School Prayer, by Diane Ackerman
In the name of the daybreak
and the eyelids of morning
and the wayfaring moon
and the night when it departs,
I swear I will not dishonor
my soul with hatred,
but offer myself humbly
as a guardian of nature,
as a healer of misery,
as a messenger of wonder,
as an architect of peace.
In the name of the sun and its mirrors
and the day that embraces it
and the cloud veils drawn over it
and the uttermost night
and the male and the female
and the plants bursting with seed
and the crowning seasons
of the firefly and the apple,
I will honor all life
—wherever and in whatever form
it may dwell—on Earth my home,
and in the mansions of the stars.
See you in January.
-Ruth