A goodbye

RIC_0040, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

I have also learned that a goodbye is an opportunity for kindness, for forgiveness, for intimacy, and ultimately for love and a deepening acceptance of life as it is instead of what it was or what we may have wanted it to be. Goodbyes can be poignant, sorrowful, sometimes a relief, and, now and then, an occasion for joy. They are always transition moments that, when embraced, can be the door to a new life both for ourselves and for others.

Roger Housden, Ten Poems to Say Goodbye

Embracing Darkness

HVUC 11, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


We do not spring into life perfectly formed. We each have our fault lines, and it is not by turning away from them that life suddenly takes on its full glory. No, I believe that we come to our fullness not in spite of our darkness, but in the embrace of it. 

Roger Housden, Risking Everything

Life

RIC_7891-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.

     If there is one thing in life we can be sure of,

     it is that there will always be a next. Until there isn’t.

        Roger Housden, Ten Poems to Say Goodbye

Awareness

RIC_0317-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


     When we have a heightened awareness of life’s fleeting
     impermanence, life itself becomes ever more precious and vivid. 

       Roger Housden, Ten Poems to Say Goodbye

Openness

RCC_6049-1, a photo by rchoephoto on Flickr.


At the heart of love is openness. An unfettered openness of heart
and spirit, it seems to me, is what intimacy — with another and
with all life — really means. That openness is what I now believe
true detachment to be.

Roger Housden, Ten Poems to Say Goodbye