Rose Gordon, Circle of Compassionate Care

06/07/2024

August offering of P.E.A.C.E at the End of Life at the Hondo Mesa Sanctuary. I hope you’ll join us!

06/05/2024

Who will you bring flowers to?

"do not bring flowers to my grave".

do not bring flowers to my grave -
bring them to someone who is yet living.
carry them over a mountain to the ones
who were never held softly.

gather up the lilacs and lilies and orchids
and put them in the hair of those who have
windows but are bound to their rooms.
of those whose cages are untied and yet
cannot find flight.

wade through wind-tossed tides to bring
them to those whose eyes have hardened.
whose hearts have grown cold.
whose minds ache at the mere thought of
waking.

pluck an ocean full of colored blooms and
tie them to the streetlamps where the
homeless are sleeping. to cardboard.
and carts. and places of weeping.

press flowers between the pages of their stories. magnolias. marigolds. morning glories.
make an offering to the ones who had hope
but can not revive it.

spread blossoms like light in dark corners.
like bread for the hungry. like strength for
the weary. like a beautiful balm for the souls
that are lonely.

hold them up to blackened skies so that on
that heavenly day, when the rains begin to fall,
every seed that ever trembles to the earth,
plants a garden. a landscape. a shelter.
a beacon.

but do not bring flowers to my grave.
bring them to someone who is yet living.

05/24/2024

Do you want to create a deeper conversation between your waking and dreaming worlds? Scroll to the services and retreats section of www.circlesofcompassionatecare.com and check out High Deep River Dreaming retreat or the High Desert Dreaming Series I’m offering this August. Small intimate circles convened in a spacious, rural setting on the mesa in Arroyo Hondo. I’d love to have you join us. Contact me and catch the early bird special!

Services & Retreats writings & media contact thich nhat hahn Vietnamese monastic and peace activist roshi halifax Zen Roshi founder of upaya zen center in Santa Fe bernie glassman Founder of Zen Peacemakers and bearing witness retreats Non-medical support of all kinds: Creating Advanced Directives a...

05/08/2024

My new website:
Circlesofcompassionatecare.com

04/21/2024

Sing it to them !!!

03/30/2024

To be completely new and fresh… over and over..,

To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man's-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again.

~Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times
Art: Unknown

03/21/2024

'When human beings lose their connection to nature, to heaven and earth, they do not know how to nurture their environment or how to rule their world—which is saying the same thing. Human beings destroy their ecology at the same time that they destroy one another. From that perspective, healing our society goes hand in hand with healing our personal, elemental connection with the phenomenal world.'
~Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche
"Shambhala: The Sacred Path of the Warrior

03/09/2024

Beyond surface time

The Celtic imagination always sensed that beneath time there was eternal depth. This offers us a completely different way of relating to time. It relieves time of the finality of ending. While something may come to an ending on the surface of time, its presence, meaning, and effect continue to be held and integrated into the eternal. This is how spirit unfolds and deepens. In this sense, eternal time is intimate; it is where the unfolding narrative of individual life is gathered and woven. Eternal life is eternal memory; therefore, it becomes possible to imagine a realm beyond endings where all that has unfolded is not canceled or lost, but where the spirit-depths of it are already arriving home.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from Benedictus (Europe) /
To Bless the Space Between Us (US)
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

Ballyvaughan, County Clare, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill