Komorebi

This series has been in my mind for years, actually going back to small conceptual moments in college and even while I was doing the houseplant series. I think it just drifts back into my mind when my heart is aching, or my emotions feel so deep that I simply want to walk and observe the shadows dancing on the ground.

A lot of times a series is born from simple curiosity if there is a word that describes a feeling I have. This year has been a somber year, and as I walked the streets I have walked every day and looked at these shadows, I felt a sense of a kindredness to them. I had experienced a beauty walk in and out of my life. I had seen her beautiful shadow cover my life and dissipate leaving me feeling so alone and hollow. I realized that those shadows reminded me of my lost child. It feels like such a sweet gift every morning and evening. I see the plants in my home put off their shadows, and I feel as though they command my attention. They beckon us to slow down and observe them and remember the sweet beauty of those we have loved and lost. 

So, I challenge you as you walk through your daily life to slow down and make sure you observe the sunlight filtering through the trees. Feel its dappled warmth that lingers for such a small amount of time. See how it bends and sways and grows and then disappears. I find it beautiful that shadows can highlight the impermanence of the quiet beauty in our lives, and they should give us a gentle awareness of the transience of the things that flit through our paths. 

A Liturgy for the First Glimpse of New Hope:

O God who remembers the needs of your children,

I have glimpsed your faithfulness, and I give you praise.

For in this grey winter of my desolation, I have heard at last 

the unexpected birdsong of hope returning. 

I had all but forgotten that it is in the created rhythm of things 

For even the drip-melt of ice and snow, to sun-dappled shoots

And leaves budding beyond the reach of the last hard freeze,

To the patter and flutter of life in a world

Newly waking from its long hibernation.

So has it been with my own heart.

Recently I heard that first whirring, 

As of small wings alighting in a tangle of twigs, 

And I recognized its name: Hope.

Such a dear friend, so long parted. 

I praise you, O God, for hopes first return.

It’s like glimpsing again the sweet smile

Of a beloved but long-distance sister, waving happily 

From the deck of a returning ocean vessel…

Now, O God let eternal hopes in even greater numbers 

Begin to wing their way home, to nest again in 

The sorrowed hollows of my soul, to fill my memories,

My tears, my days, with their bright songs.

For I am learning, O Lord, how sorrow and hope

Were never enemies, but co-laborers.

For it is sometimes the work of our grief 

To hew out deep cisterns where the sustaining waters

Of eternal hope might afterwards pool.

…

Remain ever at work in me, my Maker,

Gently shaping my heart at all times, 

And through all things.

Amen.