Benediction
“See everything.”
Benediction comes from the Latin words meaning something like "good word.” A benediction is a blessing, an invitation to go forward in a new light, a hopeful wish for the journey ahead. In a lot of circles, this blessing is the boon a fairy or a god or God or the universe or saint or community or wizard or shaman might grant us in our story ahead. The genie says they’ll grant us three wishes. Three benedictions. You get it. Benedictions in these understandings are about how the road might rise up to meet us, or how the moral arc of the universe might bend toward justice — in other words, they’re about how reality might conform to our desires.
I want to suggest something different.
We might think of benedictions as not changing reality out there, but rather as lenses that change how we view that reality, how we understand and process it. How we see. Benedictions are the pair of eyeglasses that alter how we see the world for the better. The road may well rise up to meet us if we’re walking uphill, but in the pathways that lead to valleys, in the wastelands, we are the ones who must rise to meet the road. A good word changes our reality because it shifts how we perceive it — and therefore how we respond to whatever’s before us.
This is more than just a quaint charm. When we take on the blessing, we become the blessers. That’s how the world changes. How we become the fairies and saints. How we take on our identity as the Body.
Take a listen to what I mean in Arcadian Wild’s luscious song, “A Benediction.”
What is our good word? How can we fully inhabit it? How might we make it our breath?