A Blessing for Sabbath Ritual

We give thanks for this sacred space and the beauty that surrounds us.

We honor those who are laid to rest in this land. May their souls remember us kindly. 

We give thanks for all of those who have come to this space before us and those who will come after. 

We open our minds and our hearts to the experience of this pilgrimage. May the lessons we learn along the way make us more loving, more observant, and kind to the earth, ourselves, and others. 

People need wild places.  Whether or not we think we do, we do.  We need to be able to taste grace and know again that we desire it.  We need to experience a landscape that is timeless, whose agenda moves at the pace of speciation and glaciers.  To be surrounded by a singing, mating, howling commotion of other species, all of which love their lives as much as we do ours, and none of which could possibly care less about us in our place.  It reminds us that our plans are small and somewhat absurd.        BARBARA KINGSOLVER, Small Wonder