05.04.2026. Matches Struck
Hello dear Friends,
“The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark.”
― Virginia Woolf
🍃
The world is on fire, and what are we going to do? Rain is dancing outside our doors, and the Rumi who lives inside each of us is whispering: "Quick, come! The moon is waning full. Rip off your clothes, fly out the door. Tears are dancing, gutters are flooding with joy."
It seems to be a degenerative time — a gaping-wound time — yet I keep seeing (and maybe you, too?) so many people like poems in the making, showing up stronger, clearer, and braver; grieving and breathing with their gift, with their spark, with their holy work to do in this era, in this burning, dark, bright time, in this world so alive.
I was out for a birthday dinner with a dear friend — the restaurant loud and crowded, tables around us just a body-sliver apart, every word shared heard — with our knees almost touching, our table of two, we leaned in even closer, as dear women friends tend to do. My friend whispered low to me, as if not to reveal too soon the message that soon will be shouted loudly out into the world, "Yes, I know our beloved world is aching dark, crowded tight with pain, and there is so much more bright hope and love, brighter light than ever before."
“Yes. Yes, I see this too!” I said.
We laughed out loud — no joke told—like we had just eaten sunshine and a feast of whole, of simple, the poignant wonder of it all:
this being alive,
this aging, growing old with body parts, heart and minds that still get up and off the floor,
this hair of ours sliced with gray waxing to full moon, luminous white.
this skin of forgiveness and this learning how to fall head of heels in love with ourselves moment by moment and it’s about time!
and with this world, so rich and raging with holy disturbance and beauty, unexpected and increasingly tender. holy, amen.
🍃
Come Practice & Be In Community
Drop-in Meditation Today. All are welcome; no prior experience is needed—just an open tender heart.
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM: 20-minute Guided Practice Steadying the Heart and 20-minute Metta Meditation Practice
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM: Conversations and Nourishment for the heart, for your practice of Meditation.
Dāna: Pay What You Can. (suggested donation $10-$40 )
Location: 778 West Frontage Road, Suite 111, Northfield, IL.
Closing in warmth and care, a heart of gratitude, and so thankful we are in this complex time together.
Love, Wini
PS: May the poems, quotes, and the links below offer sparks of inspiration and beauty for your soul.
♥️ and this closing song, a blessing morning song ... lovely!
☕ Please consider supporting The Metta Letters by making a donation at Buy Me A Coffee here to support The Metta Letters on a monthly basis 💌
🌸 Two Poems. “I came up with a handful of rules: write a delight every day for a year; begin and end on my birthday, August 1; draft them quickly; and write them by hand. The rules made it a discipline for me. A practice. Spend time thinking and writing about delight every day.” ― Ross Gay, The Book of Delights
Compost Happens | Laura Grace Weldon
Nature teaches nothing is lost.
It's transmuted.
Spread between rows of beans,
last year's rusty leaves tamp down weeds.
Coffee grounds and banana peels
foster rose blooms. Bread crumbs
scattered for birds become song.
Leftovers offered to chickens come back
as eggs, yolks sunrise orange.
Broccoli stems and bruised apples
fed to cows return as milk steaming in the pail,
as patties steaming in the pasture.
Surely our shame and sorrow
also return, composted by years
into something generative as wisdom.
Because It Is Spring | Janice Falls
Because it is spring
the world unfolds itself to our wonder:
the thawing, melting, juicy dripping
that is the earth softening,
that is our bodies softening,
opening like the green buds of new leaves.
Muscles that have been tightly clenched
begin to lengthen and unfurl
placing eager trust in the warming air
and our winter-pale faces turn like flowers
toward the sun’s comforting heat.
As the earth bestirs its waking self
so does our blood and breath quicken,
our movements informed by the season
becoming supple as air as we lighten
shedding the heavy vestments of hibernation,
dancing the gladness of spring.
🍃 If you missed last week’s post, I shared about Heart Poems, a home for poetry curated by Janice Falls. She created this site to share the many poems of other poets that inspire and delight her.
In all the years of my reading her offerings, I’ve never seen her post one of her own poems. What a delight, this one arrived today… and beautiful. She included this side note:
“...but at my friend Anne’s insistence, I agreed to post this one I wrote fourteen years ago
for her spring equinox gathering.”
Praise, and YES to sacred trusted friendships—those that see, believe, and hold our beauty-light, our divine spark, this miracle of our life, sacred and bright.
🌸 Three Quotes | Thich Nhat Hanh. Arthur Gordon. Terry Tempest Williams
“This my dear is the greatest challenge to being alive, to witness injustice in the world, cruelty, suffering, the most difficult situations and not allow it to consume our light and still maintain a heart of compassion and peace."
🍃 A five-minute teaching by Thich Nhat Hanh:Beyond the Storm of Fear (5:56 min) The blessing of belly breathing—and it’s human to be afraid, and storms come and go.
“There is not enough darkness in all the world to put out the light of one small candle... In moments of discouragement, defeat or even despair, there are always certain things to cling to. Little things usually: remembered laughter, the face of a sleeping child, a tree in the wind - in fact, any reminder of something deeply felt or dearly loved. None is so poor as not to have many of these small candles. When they are lighted, darkness goes away and a touch of wonder remains.”
— Arthur Gordon, A TOUCH OF WONDER
“Once upon a time, when women were birds, there was the simple understanding that to sing at dawn and to sing at dusk was to heal the world through joy. The birds still remember what we have forgotten, that the world is meant to be celebrated.”
― Terry Tempest Williams, When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice
🍃This book is one to gift, to read, to underline, and to write love notes, hearts, and stars in the margins. This book is my current book club read; it is a reread for me. I pulled it from my shelf, opening it with wonder—letting the pads of my fingers touch texture, paper and ink, turn the pages.
Curious about the sentences underlined, the words I wrote in the margins (my handwriting much clearer then). I wonder about this me then, I wonder what words call to me from the pages, beg to be held again.
A short video, Terry Tempest Williams and cellist David Darling: "When Women Were Birds"(2:25 min)
🌸 Some Blooms | Some Lovely Things to Share 🌼 🌱 🌷 🌿🪻(Five)
Dear writing friends, this interview is a great listen. The"How I Write" podcast with David Perell with Anne Lamott Teaches Unforgettable Writing (1:18:12 min)
A powerful read about this planet we call home: Truth, Consequences, Climate, and Demand Destruction by Rebecca Solnit, from her Substack, Meditations in an Emergency.
Have you heard of him? I had not. This was sent my way by a dear friend, this excerpt is from an advice column written by an Irish Dominican friar named Donagh O'Shea. I too love what he wrote about living our lives fully. Click here to read
A Six-Week Series, The Best of Florence Scovel Shinn, Wednesdays Evenings - Online Zoom 7:00–8:30pm CT with the beloved meditation teacher Ramaa Krishnan. I just signed up, if you want to join me.
And I signed up for this glorious offering, too: The Blessing and the Wound, a two-week online poetry retreat with poets James Crews and Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer. Oh, I would love it if you would join me here, too!
🌸 Closing Song | As I Walk In the Morning
As I wake in the morning
I count my blessings now
I say thank you, oh, thank you…
A song by Alexia Chellun, As I Walk In the Morning—a song of remembering, a song to touch your innate goodness-gold.
A song to play with the volume on loud on your car ride to work, on your headset while taking the train, or while out for your morning walk, run, or puttering around your garden discovering what green wonder arrived today.
🌸🙏Dedicate Merit | In all Mystical traditions, there is a closing prayer – prayers of blessing, gratitude and protection.
May you strike your heart match again and again, share your light, exquisite and bright.
May you breathe in joy and exhale out, I belong here inside of me.
May you fall in love with the poignant wonder of your own Light
May all beings be safe and protected; this I wish for everyone.
May we awaken fully to help all beings.
– Love, Wini
Have a blessed day 💖
🌸 PS. You can find all the newsletters archived on my website.
These newsletters will always be free—and if you appreciate receiving these weekly sparks of tender-goodness please consider offering your support through Buy Me a Coffee, 🌸 venmo (Winifred-Nimrod) 🌸 or zelle (wininim@gmail.com) 🌸
Thank you, I am a one-woman, two-finger typing, unfolding her thousand-petal bloom.
✨ May we bloom more Light.
💞 May we grow more Goodness for the healing of all.
🌎 May each of us thread our heart-tenderness, our Beauty, into the fabric of our planet.
….Until next week. 💖 ✨
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Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.
- Mary Oliver
Website:https://www.wininimrod.com/
