Sunny Notes: 02.11.26 - The Healing of the Mundane
As I took my German Shepherd, Movy, out at dawn this morning, something felt different in the air—less chill, more spring. Each breath in smelled earthy and rich. I watched as several American Robins on the nearby ground moved in that funny way they do, dashing off for a few steps, then stopping abruptly. It was all very ordinary, these predictable harbingers of spring. And yet, coming off of Sunday's service—where we explored the questions "What needs healing in you?" and "What is emerging in you?" while celebrating the ancient holiday of Imbolc and the Goddess Brigit—they felt special and timely.
With bits and pieces of the service rattling around in my head, I was so much more present to these signs. They were a perfect embodiment of "this time of anticipated spring" that Rev. Dr. Terasa Cooley's words spoke of in our closing reading...this time when "ewes rest heavy bellies on wet greening grass," as described by Dr. Patricia Monaghan while in Ireland over Imbolc (a Gaelic word meaning "in the belly") to celebrate the feast and flame of goddess-turned-saint, Brigit.
And I was reminded of Monaghan's experience of Brigit's flame. At one time, it was a perpetual fire tended for centuries by a group of women at Saint Brigit's Fire Temple; now, it exists as a small candle lit on a simple altar in a modest home that stands a few blocks from the original fire temple. For Monaghan, however, it was "the very ordinariness, of both the shrine and its sacred flame, that moved [her] so deeply," as "it spoke of the way ancient knowledge is truly preserved, in the mundane and often overlooked places of our world, of our souls."
Today, it was the very ordinariness of earthy air and wet grass and hopping birds that moved me so deeply. Especially in times like these, when there is so much to distract us from our inner life and the "extraordinary ordinary" of our everyday world, may we remember the wisdom and healing available in "the mundane often overlooked places." And may we be present to what is emerging "in this anticipated time of spring" in ourselves and in our world.
— Sunny, minister