Meditation: August 29th, 2025
"Every farewell is a small death that teaches us how to love more fiercely while we can, how to treasure what is temporary, how to find the eternal in the ephemeral."
Physical Setting & Preparation
Seek out a place where partings are visible—at the edge where day meets night in the long shadows of late afternoon, beside paths that diverge into different directions, or where summer flowers begin their graceful surrender to autumn's approach. Let your body settle into earth that has witnessed countless departures, feeling the weight of all the farewells that have been spoken in this place. Notice how the air itself seems to hold the bittersweet perfume of endings and the promise of what lies beyond.
Opening Invocation | Fosgladh
Màthair na Talmhainn, anns na soraidh
Mother of the Earth, in farewells
Agus anns a' bhròn
And in sorrow
Tha sinn a' seasamh air oir
We stand on the edge
Eadar na bha agus na bhios
Between what was and what will be
Le cridhe goirt
With aching heart
A' sireadh do chomhfhurtachd
Seeking your comfort
Ann an duilgheadas an dealachaidh
In the difficulty of separation
Breathe into the heaviness that settles around partings like morning mist, feeling how your chest constricts with the knowledge that all things beloved must eventually be released. Let each exhalation carry the weight of accumulation—all the goodbyes you've spoken, all the doors that have closed behind you, all the hands you've had to let go when you wanted to hold them forever.
Body of the Working | Corp
Today we walk through the valleys of melancholic and touched—the deep sadness that honors what was beautiful and the tender gratitude that recognizes blessing even in loss.
Tha dubhachas agus suathadh
Melancholy and being touched
A' sruthadh nam fhuil
Flowing in my blood
Mar abhainn a' gluasad
Like a river moving
Tro ghleann domhain
Through deep valley
A' giùlan cuimhneachain
Carrying memories
Do'n mhuir mhòr
To the great sea
Picture yourself standing at a railway platform as the last train departs, carrying someone precious beyond the horizon. This is melancholy's landscape—not the sharp pierce of fresh grief but the dull ache of accumulated partings, the weight of knowing that love and loss are inseparable companions, that every hello contains within it the seed of eventual goodbye.
Feel how this sadness moves through your body like slow honey, thick and golden and strangely nourishing despite its heaviness. It pools in your throat, behind your eyes, in the hollow spaces between your ribs where love once lived but now only memory dwells. This melancholy is not depression but the soul's way of honoring what mattered, of refusing to pretend that endings don't leave marks.
Ach ann am meadhan a' bhròin
But in the middle of sorrow
Tha rudeigin eile
There is something else
Suathadh na beatha
The touching of life
Air mo chridhe
Upon my heart
A' cur nam cuimhne
Reminding me
Gu robh e math a bhith ann
That it was good to be there
Now feel the other current flowing beneath the sadness—the profound gratitude that you were present for something beautiful, even if briefly, even if it ended. This is what it means to be touched by life: to recognize that the pain of parting is the price of having been blessed, that the depth of your sorrow measures the height of your joy.
The Deep Working | An Obair Dhomhain
Tha mi a' ionnsachadh bho na rionnagan
I learn from the stars
A tha a' deàrrsadh
That shine
Ged a tha cuid dhiubh
Even though some of them
Air a dhol à bith
Have ceased to exist
Ach tha an solas aca
But their light
Fhathast a' ruighinn thugainn
Still reaches us
Descend into the earth's deep archives where every season that has ever been continues to live in soil and stone, where nothing that was beautiful ever truly dies but transforms into new forms of nourishment. Here the Mother reveals her deepest comfort: that farewells are not erasures but transformations, not endings but doorways into different kinds of presence.
Feel how every person you've had to release continues to live within you, not as memory but as the ways they changed your heart, the gifts they left in your soul, the parts of their love that became permanently woven into who you are. Your melancholy becomes a sacred vessel holding all that was precious, while your gratitude for having been touched becomes a light that illuminates the path forward.
Ann am dhubhachas
In melancholy
Tha mi a' cumail grèim
I keep hold
Air na bha àlainn
Of what was beautiful
Ann an t-suathadh
In being touched
Tha mi a' gabhail ris
I accept
Gun robh e na bheannachd
That it was a blessing
Let yourself become like the earth at twilight—holding both the warmth of the day that is ending and the promise of the dawn that will come, carrying within your depths all the seasons you have known while remaining open to whatever seasons await.
Afterthought | Smuain Dheiridh
Take a moment to contemplate:
How might your sadness at farewells become a sacred keeping of what was precious, and your gratitude for having been touched by beauty become a beacon for recognizing new blessings when they arrive?
Closing Blessing | Beannachd Dheiridh
Màthair na Talmhainn, ann am meadhan
Mother of the Earth, in the middle
Gach soraidh goirt
Of every painful farewell
Bi còmhla rinn
Be with us
Ann am meadhan gach cuimhne
In the middle of every memory
A tha a' dèanamh ar cridhe trom
That makes our heart heavy
Cuimhnich dhuinn
Remind us
Gun do rinn sinn eòlas
That we knew
Air rudeigin àlainn
Something beautiful
Agus gu bheil sin
And that this
Na bheannachd do-mhillidh
Is an indestructible blessing
Slàn leat, a dhubhachas naomh
Farewell, sacred melancholy
Slàn leat, a thaing bheannaichte
Farewell, blessed gratitude
Obraichidh sibh còmhla
Work together
Gus mo chridhe a ghleidheadh fosgailte
To keep my heart open
Return slowly to the present moment, feeling how the earth continues to hold both the sorrow of countless endings and the joy of endless new beginnings. Your own capacity to be touched by beauty remains undiminished by loss, perhaps even deepened by the knowledge that all encounters are precious precisely because they are temporary.
Oh how I needed this today. Thank you.
☀️🙏🌙