Enjoy Lectio Divina poetry reading and discussion with JoAnn Anglin, Monday, December 4 at 10:00 a.m.  Attend via Zoom at www.uuss.org/online.

Schedule Notes:  JoAnn writes:  Because of how December seems to have as many pressures as pleasures, I have decided to do just one poetry Zoom this month, none on the 18th.  Also, because the first Monday in January is New Year’s Day, I think I’ll postpone that discussion for a week. I have to check with others to be sure if that is possible, and will let you know when I know.   Meantime, I hope everyone is having as much joy as stress in the weeks to come.

Our poem is Orca Blessing, by Lynn Caruso. I think we need a little something that implies hope and this seemed to me to do that. Do you agree?

Orca Blessing
by Lynn Caruso
For Eli

Blessings of quiet harbors,
the waters dark and dancing
with a field of ocean weeds.
Thin crystal skirts of jellyfish
waltzing to the music of the deep.
Blessings of startled salmon
circled ‘round by the call of family.
For arias of clicks and whistles
calling one another home.
Small child in my arms,
cooing in sleep, his belly
bubbling with mother’s milk.
Blessings for travel north
through current of salt waters and ferry
wakes. Past Friday Harbor and the sunken
schooner in Neah Bay, alive
with a thousand swimming eyes.
Blessing your gentle roll on roll,
your body rocking like some ancient monk,
in robe of black and mottled white.
Bowing to the sun, the stars,
to all things waiting on the shore.
My infant son swims in my arms,
dreaming the ocean of the womb.
Blessings of salt spray,

You breech in joy, then crash
again – echo of birth,
when your mother shook you from
her swollen body, and pushed you
toward your first breath.
And now, again and again, you rise,
crowning through the surface of the bay,
searching for your place
among the tides.
Your wake rolls to the shore,
breaks against the rocks, the drifted wood,
the warm sand. My son’s fingers open and close
in sleep, holding some smooth piece
of all he has not seen.

From Blessing the Animals; Prayers and Ceremonies to Celebrate God’s Creatures, Wild and Tame.
Edited by and with Introductions by Lynn L. Caruso

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