I already felt lucky to be in this community during the ups and downs of the last year or so, and now some very generous friends have given me a holiday in Kauai - leaving tomorrow, back next Tuesday. I can't tell you how great it feels to be looking forward to something like this.
I wanted to make sure you all have the poems from Suvarnaprabha's funeral - so I've copied them below.
For those of you in San Francisco - a small shrine has been created in memory of Suvarnaprabha, in the shrine room - you are welcome to add to it.
Vimalamoksha will be leading Sangha Night tomorrow - sorry I'll miss it. I think Rochelle is the only Sangha Night Team member at the moment so please help her out if you can.
I hope to see or be in touch with most of you soon after Tuesday. Meanwhile, take care, lots of love, and thank you,
Padmatara
Poems from Suvarnaprabha's Funeral
This one came specially from Paramananda:
Late Fragment by Raymond Carver
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
***
This is part of a longer poem she wrote herself in March:
House of Fire II
Here are two choices.
All of us must do one of
them
Either the world is pried
From our fists
Or we let go
If only: of a sense of
control
If only: of choosing my
fate
In every now that I can
find
The thing to let go of
Is me
One of the other things
Is you.
***
And this one was behind her bed:
Beannacht - John O'Donohue
On the day when
the weight deadens
on your shoulders
and you stumble,
may the clay dance
to balance you.
And when your eyes
freeze behind
the grey window
and the ghost of loss
gets in to you,
may a flock of colours,
indigo, red, green,
and azure blue
come to awaken in you
a meadow of delight.
When the canvas frays
in the currach of thought
and a stain of ocean
blackens beneath you,
may there come across the waters
a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.
May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
may the clarity of light be yours,
may the fluency of the ocean be yours,
may the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
wind work these words
of love around you,
an invisible cloak
to mind your life.
There's a nice reading by the author here