A Blessing for Courage

I bless you with the fortitude of stones,
a shimmering of granite boulders.

I bless you with a mind at peace with being,
with being your very own self.

I bless you with a raising of the flag
in victory over punishment.

I bless you with the materialisation of hidden
and beautiful things.

I bless you with the courage of lions
to roar through your chest

and to declare to the heavens
you are a believer in what loves

and you will rise up on your brave
to tell everyone through your eyes

that love is deeper, and calmer and clearer
than the confusion and rampage.

I bless you with the forward momentum
that comes when you let everything fall

and you feel as though you can't take one more thing
and you want to give it all up and away,

I bless you to take the seed that remains
and plant it in true resolution

and to know that what germinates now
will spread across the earth as a garden set free.

Jenneth Graser

A Blessing for Parents

I bless you with wisdom beyond time
and discernment from elsewhere, heavenly.

I bless you with the might of adventurous belief
and grace intentional as the falls of Niagara.

I bless you with the burden of spent wishes
to slide off your shoulders finally

and for the love that is greater
to be greater for you than remorse.

I bless you with friends who understand
and people not afraid to wear hearts,

who can take off the masks of perfection
and share the messy beauty of becoming.

I bless you to be free of the stale taste of guilt
and to walk into the pure springs of Jordan.

I bless the old regret of all you should have done
to pack bags and exit the door.

I bless you to dream with wild imagination
and allow restriction to be momentarily lost,

to step in every puddle and jump the waves
to see with eyes born upon summer and sun.

I bless you with a love for questions
that don't need to have answers,

for the strength of angels to give you
a way to move into the conflict brave.

I bless you with courage to speak into what hides
so that the glory underneath may surface.

I bless you with the starting point of words
when everything cries out, enough.

I bless you to begin again,
and to know that there are no dead ends.

I bless you with the courage to embrace your self
as the intrepid parent you are.

I bless you to share the incredible wonder
of hearts connecting again and again.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Matt Hoffman Unsplash

A Blessing off the Beaten Path

I bless you to adorn yourself in the courage

of forgiveness, bravely worn

and to make friends with your thoughts,

your thoughts reaching out with praise.

I bless you to see the sprinklings of God

in places others would never deem worthy.

I bless you to take the path unmarked

and to stumble upon a significant view,

to wrap garlands of faith in your hair

and rest in a simple knowing of God.

I bless you to send out prayers for love's sake

and not only for what it is you want,

to feel love grow around you rampant

when you walk off the broad road of success.

I bless you to find what you are looking for

by going inward, to the place you call here.

I bless you to embrace your dark and light

and to lose a desire for perfection.

I bless you to drink from the nectar of dreams

and to believe in them, every one

and for the first song heard on the earth

to be brought forth to your recollection.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Aneta Ivanova Unsplash

A Blessing on Your Days

I bless your days to wake with God's breath
and devotion to forge a path ahead.

I bless your face with a window on heaven,
and a hand reaching out to embrace.

I bless the companions around you
to share your sorrows with your joys,

to see the light hidden within you
and remind you of what is etched on your soul.

I bless you to remember what it is to learn
with the determination of a child at play,

with the imagination of a child in the trees,
picking fruit till the juice drips down.

I bless you to risk some hearty courage
and take up a project long shelved,

to clear the clutter and the cobwebs
with both hands courageous upheld.

I bless your spirit to receive the great promise,
that love will pursue you beyond the grave,

that there is a destiny for you on this day
right here, at this time, for this season

to be who only you can be,
to do what only you can do.

I bless you to live within this belonging
under the benediction of evening's first star

at rest with your place in the world
wearing your skin with brave honour.

I bless your nights to be softened
by the wings of many angels, circling.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Nikola Knezevik Unsplash

A Blessing for Hope

I bless you with a slate wiped completely clean
and a brand new box of coloured chalk, ready.

I bless you with the silver lining
of every cloud after the storm slows into rain.

I bless you with a breeze on stifling days
to swirl around your thoughts, lifted.

I bless your boat to be carried
by the broadest rivers of purpose.

I bless the dead bones long lying,
to resurrect with revolutionary dreams.

I bless the music latent in your body
to be expressed through your instrument of choice.

I bless your feet to feel grounded
and your wings to flex amply wide out.

I bless you to grieve all of your losses
on the swell and crest of each wave.

I bless your voice to have a place of belonging,
for you to turn the key and open the door.

I bless what is waiting around the corner
to give you a glimpse of fresh knowing.

I bless the wells of inspiration
to be drawn from in bountiful measure,

and the windows to be thrown open
for the light and air to get in,

for the folds and wrinkles to be soothed
and the past to never dictate the future,

for a lullaby and melody to rest upon
your curtain, and cross the threshold into sleep.

I bless your creative insights
and your stories to be told.

I bless you to believe in yourself,
even when others have lost faith.

I bless your failures to become your friends
and a perspective of truth, your great worth.

I bless you with a multiplication of promises
to be dear to you as treasure once lost, now found.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Leon Biss Unsplash

A Blessing on Your Breath

I bless you with the awareness
of each miracle of breath you take.

I bless your breathing to be filled with
all that roots you in the present.

I bless the air to be pure
and saturate your temple with space and time.

I bless you with largeness of breath
to expand and settle your diaphragm.

I bless you with the Ruach
coming to you from the source of life, Spirit.

I bless you with breath that filled
the nostrils of the first ever human, rising from earth.

I bless you with an anchoring through breath
into peace that connects you with others.

I bless you with breath that is held
and slowly released,

with a heartbeat in tune with each
intake and a mind resting on that.

I bless you with the breath of resurrection
restoring the alignment of your body.

I bless you to abide within your breath,
a gift of life in each moment.

I bless you in the rise and fall of your chest,
gentle rhythms of grace.

I bless you with a prayer on each breath,
where prayers don't need words.

I bless you with a release of old pain
as the winds of breath circulate.

I bless you to breathe together with God
on the still, silent whispers of wisdom.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Joel Cross Unsplash

A Garden Unveiled

I weave myself with you God,
a synchronicity of cords.

I crochet myself into your kindness,
I embroider myself into your wise ways.

I am on the loom of your handiwork
and your brilliance of design is my awe.

You have given me over to surrender
and quietened me through your gifts.

It isn't as I thought, so you guide my thinking.
It isn't as I imagined, so you move me by vision.

I am becoming aware.

I am stepping out of what seems to fit
into what is truly fitting.

I am woven into trust -
a banner of love that stretches
from the moment of my birth to my death.

My family are the witnesses of your creation.

You spoke and I came into being.
I was taken from the rib of a man
and enfleshed into form.

I was breathed from the earth into life
and every day ordained for me was given.

I have partnered with you, a Daughter.
I have championed with you as a friend.

And now I am ready for the angels to part swords
and to walk in on a garden unveiled.

I am waiting for my tapestry to cease being
framed, and to become for me a threshold into Eden.

We will walk together in the cool of day
and under the stars of a multitudinous night.

We will feel what it is for the first time
to face to face, be.

To come into the fragrance of uncountable flowers.

Jenneth Graser

(with loving remembrance of Viv Kidwell, written 11 June 2018, a beautiful woman, with an honest open heart, down-to-earth, gentle, say it as it is, and always pointing to Jesus. The words she spoke to me, which I will never forget, "Just come back to what it is to be loved by Jesus.")

Photography Poppie Pack Unsplash

A Blessing for Recovery

I bless you in the salvaging
of what really matters.

I bless your heart to be massaged
with finest balsam.

I bless all of your interactions
to be of compassionate understanding
and to resonate with healing sound.

I bless you with hands to uphold you
when you have no strength to stand.

I bless the wisdom of the ages to be clear,
a multitude of proverbs to fit your need.

I bless your own innate wisdom
to rise to the surface, benediction through pain.

I bless the silence of your day to be rich
and the moments to be calm water.

I bless you to receive the love bestowed
and to know yourself as never forgotten.

I bless the urgency of your spirit
to rest into the next step as it manifests.

I bless you to never feel lonely,
although tempted to feel so.

I bless you in the rejuvenations of time,
a journey with a particular pace.

I bless you to not feel rushed
and to be with the tears when they come.

I bless you to befriend your emotions
and to hear what each has to say.

I bless you to listen to your own inner voice,
the foresight of your life to surface.

I bless you to let things as they were, be as they were,
so that things as they are, may become.

I bless you with a handing over of reins,
a relinquishing of what can't be controlled.

I bless you to accept your limitations,
so that boundless measures may flow.

I bless you to lean back into the heartbeat
of the One who surrounds you, even now.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Faye Cornish Unsplash

A Blessing for Letting Go

I bless you with hands that open
under the pouring rain.

I bless you with a parchment
scraped clean, and made palimpsest ready.

I bless your old photographs,
and black and white memories.

I bless the letters you always wanted to write
to be swept up on the north wind, delivered

and the smiles long in coming
to ripple the day like tides on the shore.

I bless your soul with deep satisfaction
in the already and the not as yet.

I bless the mistakes you have made
to become for you a sage on a hill.

I bless your regrets to be your teachers
and your dreams to glow with a flame
that doesn't die out.

I bless your abundance to be generous
and your words to be good seed on the ground.

I bless your precious secrets to grow wings
and fly into the eternal light.

I bless your gifts and your talents
the hard work, and sweat of your brow.

I bless them to be taken and multiplied with always
more than enough to remain.

I bless your friendships and relationships
to oil your heritage with grace upon grace.

I bless the old conversations
to fall with leaves to the ground.

I bless you to let go of things as you
thought they would, could or should be
and surrender to ease your brow with what is.

I bless you with a celebration of wrinkles,
with the applause of a job well done.

I bless you with a laying down of what is heavy
and acceptance for what is to come.

I bless your hands to remain open
and your possessions to be weightless in your home.

I bless your palms to be willing
to receive what is on its way, a gift.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Oliver Pacas Unsplash

Tune into Your Sound

I emblazon the score of God's great music
across the wide opening sky.

I am a chamber of echoes from out of his heart.

I am an oboe played on the shore of Galilee
where angels tuck under each wave, a psalm.

Your Spirit writes symphonies of I CAN
and you dance, oblivious to worry.

Your cloak swishes the universe
and brings the unknowable close to my skin.

I give myself over to be loved by you.
I give myself over to be loved in return.

Your presence passes, my hand stretches out
from the cleft of the rock.

Small ambitions wash away on the tide,
as I tune into your sound.

Small ideals are relinquished in the immensity of you,
singing.

I refract upon your affirming eyes,
as many hands lift me over the verge of heaven.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Eugenia Maximova Unsplash

A Blessing for Pilgrims

I bless you with movement stirring from
within your deepest self.

I bless you with a compass arising
and a true way to go.

I bless your feet with the barefoot knowledge
of the earth and no restriction to your steps.

I bless your anchor and your sail
and a breeze to companion you through the doldrums,
to send you forth where you have not dared to go.

I bless you with a transparency of heart
and a loosening of what binds,

with the comradeship of kindred souls
to pass you a lantern on the darkest nights,

with the final destination to be set as flint
upon you, a tattoo of the finest maps
to guide, and alignment voice-to-voice
of sure-fire navigation.

I bless you to take hold of the hand
that is offered to pull you up when
you need it,

and for fellow travellers to abound
in grace and wisdom.

I bless you with the ability to move on
when the season has ripened,
and the ability to settle when it is time to stay.

I bless you Pilgrim with contentment,
knowing your ultimate heavenly call
is placing you here and now in the present.

I bless you with what longs enough
to keep the ache of what is too beautiful
at the forefront of your spirit.

I bless you with a will before the
great will, a humility to change
direction when needed, to admit you
have made a mistake and to learn from it.

I bless you with the quest of your life and
birth, with the call of your destiny
written upon your soul,
etched as treasure upon your heart,
beating with a rhythm that leads you home.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Tim Foster Unsplash

A Blessing for the Weary

I bless you with a spirit born upon spring

opening into the delight of a thousand buds

intent on sap and light.

I bless you with eyes that open on waking,

lapsing into dreams that take you

rippling back and forth from Heaven to earth.

I bless you with the memory of your

most beautiful days with no regret to accompany,

the refrains of your most favourite songs.

I bless you with a yes for all your no's

and a wide open expanse breaking out

inside of your soul.

I bless you with a hurling of old stale deeds

into the sea of no beginning, no end

and the forgetting of what is wrong.

I bless you with the small things 

revealing to you great mysteries,

a spiralling mathematical shell.

I bless you to once again feel your inspiration

a tide determined, with the determination

of dawn and the colours of earth turning into the sun.

I bless you with sleep uninterrupted,

with doubts appeased and hope beating with the blood

through every one of your arteries and veins.

I bless you to be able to see gratitude

and feel it on every breath, peel off every mask,

every label and step out in your brand-new skin, astonished.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Linus Nylund Unsplash

A Blessing for a Sound Mind

I bless you with a softening of voices
that have been known to shout.

I bless your heart to rise with outpourings
over your countenance, love.

I bless the anointing balsam to drizzle
between the hemispheres, a baptism.

I bless the neural pathways to belong
to the Mapmaker's whisper,

for original thought to retrain
and new branches to grow from the great stem.

I bless your spirit in redistribution
and for memories awash with forgiveness.

I bless you with the power of what is forgiven
and for the soundness of hands upon your temples.

I bless you with the possibilities of patience
and for the malice of the monkey mind to cease chatter.

As knees upon the cool earthen floor bow into silence
as knees bend in repose and a well worn heart lies down,

and a head lays upon a cushion and this becomes the very
gathering place of God, a staircase of holiness,

all that can be heard - angels walking up and walking down.

I bless you with a cognizance no longer tormented, kissed
with the kisses of the Christ who subdues all storms,

who causes temptations in the desert to be shown their place.

I bless you with the words, It is good
as God breathes over you peace of a blissful kind.

I bless you with an ease and repair of fragmentation,
alignment with the sounds of Heaven,
quiet when quiet is due

and pleasures of glory to soak upon the lobes
with a radiance of truth.

No carefully prepared remedy, no devised scheme
can do what can be done when Spirit calls out
over the hills and valleys of consciousness:

Be still, and know that I am God.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Nik Shuliahin Unsplash

Trajectory of Hearts

I soften the moment into listening, 

mentored by the wisdom of the aged

and the young bent on learning.

I find myself in the carpenter's backroom with a son

who made himself slow, intent, methodical,

an apprentice with a teachable heart.

Time ages the body
and yet pulls the mind into what is not time,
allowing a proverb to make itself known.

I must allow for action minimal
and internally stoke up the fires,
watch together with God the birth of a star.

I plan to be here, an observer,

until I may be there simultaneous,

until our trajectory of hearts align.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Greg Rakozy Unsplash

Together is a better way to travel

I am open to become,
the petals of my soul are responsive.

I will walk one step at a time
when the road calls for gentle progress.

Yes, I will put one foot in front
of the other, when the road is dim.

I am prepared to be wrong
and discover something I didn't know
about you or me.

Together is a better way to travel.

I am becoming, a field of many
flowers, instead of one particular bloom.

The fragrance is best when untampered
by human hands

and left to seed, carrying the memory
of the first flowers that showed up
on the rolling hills of Eden.

The ancient varieties don't always look
as well put together,
but their imperfection
is what makes them so lovely.

We will enjoy our own uniqueness
and will come upon a deeper sense
of you and me.

When we learn to move, at a quiet pace
until it is time to leap courageous.

Time ages our long ago plans
and we come upon a slow discovery
of everything new that is growing between us,
beautiful.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Nathan Jefferis Unsplash

A Blessing for Writers

I bless you with the major rivers of the earth
to run through your veins,
the Ganges, Yangtze, Mississippi.

I bless you with the flow of great waters
upon your inspiration.

I bless all of your latent ideas to materialise
from out of your DNA.

I bless the story abiding deep within
the cracks of the moment,
to be discovered, your hand on paper.

I bless you with a deluge rushing
in to fill your Okavango
and for wandering pilgrims to fall into
the oasis of your words.

I bless your voice to be heard from
the utmost heights of Mt Everest, Annapurna, Kilimanjaro.

I bless you with a blank page, a pen in your grip,
taken by the current of your dreams,
realising your own personal power,

disappointment swept away by the
mighty resilience of you, coming to life
in this place, being born upon a time and season

that has been waiting so long
to receive this epiphany:

your words arterial
channelling from out of your soul
straight into a sea of hearts,

torrential.

Jenneth Graser

Pixabay

Mercy Seat

Heaven opens above our heads
on the shouts of all who throw stones.

If we could suspend the moment
and partner with the cries of Stephen,

we too would be able to see
the Lamb of God on the mercy seat.

And the scales would fall away
from all of our eyes,

the stones would drop and knees,
the knees would bow.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Mike's Photos Pexels

A Blessing for One Who Has Nothing Left to Give

There is a blessing poured upon the head
of one who has nothing left to give.

The blessing from above the heights
oozes over the hair,

cascade-drips over the face,
the forehead glistens with it.

What is given to the one who has nothing,
who stands with empty heart, empty hands, empty voice

is a blessing of more than what can be given
to one who stands with hands
grandly occupied.

And when the one who is bereft of kindness
stands under the heights of kindness lavished,

the blessing drenches, slowly gives of itself
generous.

The anointed one drips
with the blessing given to the one who has nothing
left to give,

who has come to stand in the gift and
has learned to receive the gift

that turns all of those nothings
into something
that can begin
again.

Jenneth Graser

Photograph David Hofmann Unsplash

A Psalm of Broken Praise

Lord you have made yourself
to be my rearguard.

Your angels assign themselves
as ministers to all
who call on your name.

And I say, thank you
and the gratitude spills plenteous.

I have broken open my heart
as a vial of perfume.

I have poured the inner oil
over your feet beautiful.

I am coming through what fractures
into a greater praise.

I am entering by the gate narrow
to find a garden expanding on my sight.

I will put on shoes of the news that is good
and walk it holy into the ground

where healing herbs are bruised, the fragrance seeps,
and we are loved as we are.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Wang Xi Unsplash

A Prayer for All Creatives

I have paced myself with the paces of exuberance

and littered the floor with scrumpled-up papers.

I’ve peeled myself like a ripe fruit

and shared the segments, squeezed out juices.

Of grace, I have wondered upon

and peered between the slats of your kingdom,

but  you have been to me closer than

what is cherished as close

and have shown me the kingdom within.

You have handed me brushes, and a palette of colours,

You have reached out to take my hand

and kept my hand in your hand.

You are not in a hurry

and wait to hear my voice as it stumbles

in wave upon wave on the tide of your shores.

You have handed me a pen, and some paper on a table

and you have shown me the garden, on the edge of attention.

We have breathed the same breath, under the pre-dawn light

and thought the same thoughts, trembling on what begins.

There are times when your face alone is enough for my heart,

because the words have lain down, and gone into hibernation.

And when this comes, I mustn’t fight it, but take it instead

as the most intimate of invitations.

I feel the turning of what must be borne,

as it grows and lurches deep down

And finds its first breath when we least expect it,

howling to come out and make itself known.

So untidy, we are not made for perfection,

but find our truest expression when we run into ourselves,

to find the Son there is rising.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Johannes Plenio Pexels

Waking Up

I find you under crushed weeds lining the path
of our morning rambles.

Someone got here first and strew them out of the way,
pulled up by the roots.

How many things are you pulling up by the root
to reveal the turned over loam in us?

The sun briskly challenges the mountain,
which cannot hold back the pure poured-out light

generously misting the dew amongst reeds,
all standing like champions and witnesses.

I am being attended by the chorus of rooster,
a playful enterprise of birds so unafraid.

My prayers tumble out of my mouth
into the cracks of the valley, exposing lies for lies,
truth for truth.

We can walk here and stop being fearful of
what could be lurking in every unknown future.

We can run here and feel what it is to
have the blood surge through our muscles,

reminding us that we are a body too,
a temple called into the holy of a body-made prayer.

First thing in the morning, when the sun is bursting
at its seams with enthusiasm and there is

so much breath puffing out like clouds
all over the trails, and the day is waking, waking,
waking up all over the place.

I am waking up too.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Ban Yido Unsplash

An Archaeology of Time and Secrets

We fled the hungry streets
To find solace in upturned faces,
The eyes always speak what the mouth cannot.

The pedestal, such a lonely place
And craving for what can never fill,
The heart expands into precipitation and rain.

We are peeling the layers of earth
To dig up an archaeology of time and secrets,
Gently we brush away soil from each bone.

We have found inside of us a voice
Interlinked with the wisdom of generations,
A whisper is all it takes for these bones to rise once again.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Dane Deaner Unsplash

Join the Poetry as Therapy online Retreat - it's easy, just enter your email into the sign up form at www.secretplacedevotion.weebly.com and you will receive an email a day for 21 days in the comfort of your own home 1-21 June this year.

There Go I

Where the ones who search for precious metals
in the seams of the earth go, there go I.

The ones who leap off the edge of earth
to fly as flying foxes, at one with risk, there go I.

Those who dive below the corals under
nourishment of sun to delve for treasure obscure,
there go I with them.

To navigate the passages of hospitals to hold the hand
of one who has already been wept dry, there go I.

To look death in the face and show no fear
because fear has been exposed, can hide no more
I go there too.

Where the ones go who said, I will never
and who say, On the other side, that was not so bad,
after all, I could, I did.
There I wish to be willing to go.

The ones who left the verge of reason
and reasonable request to take a chance for the Beloved,

The ones who plundered darkness convinced
there must be something greater there than dark,

The ones who defied gravity in the face of all
fingers pointing, voices doubting

To find themselves much more than only human,
there I wish to be willing to go.

There I wish to say, I could, I did.

Jenneth Graser

Photography Jarin Bontrager Unsplash

Join the Poetry as Therapy free online Retreat 1 - 21 June 2018

Reach Forward

Lord, you have carried me behind the mountain
to speak what only I can hear.

It is necessary to reach forward by hiding
in your shadow.

You have settled me in the hollow of the earth
so that the soles of my feet may remember.

You have searched me for what, I do not know
but I have said to you, please, come.

There were knocks on the door I could not recognise.
You appeared as a stranger and I would not let you in.

Come to me in a way I can comprehend
and I will open every door in my house to you.

I want to learn the languages of your speech,
so that I do not need a translator.

I want to embed myself in the rumble of your voice
and my spirit will receive what my mind can't understand.

You are willing to surprise me out of my old skin
so that I may fall upon the ground at your feet

And find my true form, made before light
touched the first horizon.

Jenneth Graser

Join the 21 Day Poetry as Therapy Online Retreat 1 - 21 June 2018 by clicking here.