It was a wonderful celebration of our year-end last Saturday. Friends and family from all over the Valley came by to practice and share together -deep bows to all. We schedule a formal service hiatus now, in part because of typically unpredictable weather and, in part, because of the obligations of Christmas among our community. When we next meet, it will be on the other side of the shortest day, the end of one year and the unfolding of a new one, and the start of our second decade of practice.
This time of hiatus and passage was reflected earlier today when I was out pushing some of the tons of fresh snow in our yard. I recalled the dazzling red, orange and green diversity we enjoyed only a few months ago, a multi-coloured world now replaced by little other than white on white on white. One of our family visitors actually looked up at the white wall in the Jizo garden and said it looked like a “snow-nami” about to swamp us with some giant wave of whiteness. This time of year has that quality to it - wiping clean this year, like brush across a white board, so that we stand ready to write our future year. Our pack of multi-coloured markers lies open, waiting for each of us to add some new line, shape and colour to this landscape.
Yours in the Dharma,
from Akashaloka,
Innen, doshu
om namo amida butsu
Read the Religion Experts for this week at:
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/life/ask-the-religion-experts/index.html
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