Words to Unwrap with Wonder
Dear Friends & Family,
I gift you words not my own today, words that come unbidden like the first light of every day and so, words that spark wonder and linger long after you leave them. For they offer two gifts as one—neither can be without the other.
Wherever you are, whatever your life-world this moment, this day, this penumbral season of light, may you find yourself enfolded in the potentia always and everywhere present.
With love to you and yours today and every day,
Renée
Presents
I give you an emptiness,
I give you a plenitude,
unwrap them carefully.
—one’s as fragile as the other—
and when you thank me
I’ll pretend not to notice the doubt in your voice
when you say they’re just what you wanted.
Put them on the table by your bed.
When you wake in the morning
they’ll have gone through the door of sleep
into your head. Wherever you go
they’ll go with you and
wherever you are you’ll wonder,
John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom (New York: HarperCollins, 1997) pp. 212–213, c.f. Norman MacCaig, Collected Poems of Norman MacCaig.
Images © Renée Eli
This beautiful post reminds me of those wonderful childhood Christmases when all the presents would be open, the tree denuded of its magic, everyone starting to feel the let-down of Christmas midday, and suddenly Dad would say, "Wait a minute! I think something's missing." And he would go upstairs to his disorderly spaces and come down with One More Gift. It might have been a bookmark or a new tube of Chap Stick. But it was glorious because we thought there were no more gifts. And we were wrong. This post reminds me of that. Since I'm reading it on Dec 26, it's that one more gift, left out of the general pile, to savor all by itself. John O'Donohue's poem is a perfect companion to these photos full of sky. Thank you, Renée, for One More Gift.
Gorgeous photos my dear Anam Cara, Renee!