One of my favorite books by Joyce Rupp is Prayer Seeds: A Gathering of Blessings, Reflections, and Poems for Spiritual Growth. In the prayer “The Container of Your Heart,” we’re invited to hold our hands in the shape of a small bowl and let that symbolize the container of our heart. We begin the prayer meditation by imagining the container as a blessing bowl, filling with abundant blessings. What fills your blessing bowl?
My blessing bowl is filled with the gifts of summer. Today it is filled with bird song, light pinks of early dawn, a frisky fawn in the backyard, open windows, a walk to see the river, the smell of damp clover … and that is just the early summer morning’s blessings.
My blessing bowl is also filled with memories of past summers. The last two summers I’ve been part of the Summer Fun Day for children and families at Prairiewoods. Last year the Summer Fun Day included nature art journaling, a guided labyrinth experience, a photo scavenger hunt, a meditation sitting under an oak tree, and free time for families to explore and get to know the land.
I started thinking in particular about the photo scavenger hunt activity, and how much of my summer (although it’s been a very different kind of summer) has included nature photography—not so much as an active hunt as a contemplative openness to. I’ve received countless nature blessings that fill my blessing bowl, and my camera holds the pictures of many of those blessings. My camera is like a gathering basket of blessings, and the images are part of what fills the container of my heart. The images can also be shared with family and friends, and that connection with others also adds an overflowing richness to my blessing bowl.
What images have you found blessing you in nature this summer?
What smells, sounds and tastes have filled your blessing bowl this summer?
What feelings fill your blessing bowl as you spend time in nature this summer?
It’s amazing to me how this prayer, which begins with imagining a blessing bowl, opens the heart to such expansive gratitude. My blessing bowl overflows with rainy walks in the woods, conversations with chipmunks, the smell of a pine tree sunning herself at noon, the taste of fresh watermelon …
I’m blessed with the words of Ann Jackson, PBVM, and the beautiful thoughts she shared with me this week, as she plans the Mindfulness Summer Camp for Families: “Nature offers us soooo many invitations to mindfulness. In addition to the senses, nature surges emotion within us: we jump at the curling garter snake finding its way to the sun-warmed stone, or at the loud croak of the bullfrogs talking to one another from pond to pond, or at the swoop of the bat causing us to duck. We may feel curiosity at the suction cups of the treefrog, or of the misty feel of our skin while standing in the fog.”
Oh how my blessing bowl overflows, especially when I am mindful and remember to notice and to remain open. What fills your blessing bowl this summer?
—Angie Pierce Jennings, Prairiewoods hosted groups and hospitality coordinator