06.15.2026. A Visitation ❤️
Hello dear Friend,
“You are not alone,
the poem said,
in the dark tunnel.”
—Louise Glück
🍃
Some lovely and wondrous things walked into my office this week: a bird that bows. Prehistoric in nature, some four and a half feet tall, dinosaur-like with piercing eyes and an enormous, heavy, shoe-shaped bill– hence its name, the shoebill stork. How did it arrive in my office? It came on a poem, in a book given as a birthday gift long ago: The Heron Dance of Love and Gratitude by Annie O'Shaughnessy and Roderick MacIver. Herons and this shoebill stork share DNA, share slowness, share stand-still, share a spiritual blueprint — this ability to walk between the edges of worlds, to exist in the muck of the betweens where land meets water, where stillness meets movement, where patience waits and opens, where allowing becomes the pause within a pause.
Then this arrival of wonder on charred sticks, on matches, used daily in my office. Used by all who come to sit, to ponder, to illuminate what lives in the heart that needs tender care. We strike a match, light a candle wick, say a prayer. A flame is lit. We call in the ten thousand names of the Beloved, of the Holy. Smoke rises slow and wordless, quiet as the blue heron lifting into the morning mist. These used-up matches — burnt brittle and black, twisted and bent, curled by fire — I save. I gather them into a blue ceramic cup, where they wait to be given, to become her artist's pencil. She uses every part of them. Once the bringer of light, once the offering of prayer, once spoken with tears, every strike made to the Sacred, she keeps alive. She smudges the gray ash into her paper. Ash becoming art, prayers becoming paintings.
Maybe the most wondrous of all arrived in cookie dough and stardust. My friend shared this story — it wowed me, perhaps it will wow you too:
“The Zen master Seung Sahn pointed to a truth with a simple story. In a cookie factory, different cookies are baked in the shapes of animals, cars, people, and airplanes. They have different names and different forms, but they are all made from the same dough, and they all taste the same. In the same way, all things in the universe — the sun, the moon, the stars, mountains, rivers, people — have different names and different forms, but everything is made of the same substance.
What is this teaching pointing to? Separation is an illusion. The tree, the ocean, the dog, the moon: they exist without a story of being separate. They simply are. Humans seem to be the only beings who think themselves into isolation.
And yet if we are made of the same substance as the stars, as the ocean, as each other — as light and dark, sound and silence, good and bad, all made from the same cookie dough — why do we feel separate? Why do we feel lonely?
Seung Sahn says the answer lives in the thinking mind. Names and forms are made by our thinking."
But then, just when the ordinary couldn't get any more extraordinary — knowing we are made of stardust, made of same, the same substance as the universe…
A poem's voice is heard. It calls out like a heavenly messenger: "You are not alone, the poem said, in the dark tunnel." — Louise Glück
🍃
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 RAIN (Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nature) Practice, saying YES & “Simply Opening” and 10-minute Metta Meditation Practice
3:00 PM - 4:00 PM: Conversations & Introduction to the RAIN practice, a tool for working with arising waves of thoughts and emotions.
Dāna: Pay What You Can. (suggested donation $10-$40 )
Location: 778 West Frontage Road, Suite 111, Northfield, IL.
Closing in warmth and care, and so thankful we are in this 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, wild sweet!
☕ Please consider making a small donation, buy Me a Coffee 💌 The Metta Letters blooms reachers wider with your support.
🌸 Two Poems. “A poem is a cup of words open to the sky and wind in a bucket.” — Naomi Shihab Nye
Today | Hafiz (translated by Daniel Ladinsky)
and this exquisite recitation, click here
I
Do not
Want to step so quickly
Over a beautiful line on God's palm
As I move through the earth's
Marketplace
Today.
I do not want to touch any object in this world
Without my eyes testifying to the truth
That everything is
My Beloved.
Something has happened
To my understanding of existence
That now makes my heart always full of wonder
And kindness.
I do not
Want to step so quickly
Over this sacred place on God's body
That is right beneath your
Own foot
As I
Dance with
Precious life
Today.
Voices | Tina Plunkett
Voices that I listen to
that lead
that share
that repeat
Voices of music
of humor
of the past
of the future
Voices of wisdom
of encouragement
of compassion
Voices that transport me
Voices that only I can hear
All of these voices that help me find my
voice
🍃 Tina is a dear friend of Metta Mondays. She sits weekly in metta and daily in her heart. She returned home from retreat and shared this exquisite, sacred offering last week.
While visiting St. Kevin's Church at Glendalough, Ireland — a church known for its acoustics, with old bones originally made of wood in the 500s AD. The "new" church was built in the 12th century— she heard others on retreat sing into this sacred space.
After a meditative hike, she passed by the chapel again, remembering the voices of song, and this poem, "Voices," came to her. I asked permission to share it here with all of you. In her own words:
“Each step I took, another line came to me. I wrote them down as soon as I was able. I thought I was done — I took my shower and the last line came to me. The whole process was one of the most spiritual, meditative experiences I've ever had.”
🌸 Three Quotes | Oriah Mountain Dreamer. Roald Dahl. Jose Hobday.
“Sometimes I think there are only two instructions we need to follow to develop and deepen our spiritual life: slow down and let go.”
― Oriah Mountain Dreamer
“And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.”
― Roald Dahl
“Just stand wherever you are — in the kitchen, in the shop, or in the bathroom — and wrap your arms around yourself as tightly as you can. Rock yourself. Before long you will be able to feel God holding you in the same way you are holding yourself. You will be comforted the way you were comforted as a child when your mother held you in her arms and rocked you.”
— Jose Hobday, Stories of Awe and Abundance
🍃 During a long season of ‘break and bone-weary’, these are the words my meditation teacher gave as an offering back to me:
"Get on your knees. Bow your head. Hands to heart. Let your forehead touch the ground. Speak out loud. Thank God that you are alive, that you have breath, a breathing body, a quaking heart and mind. Then sit back upon your heels and feel the arms of the Beloved around you, protecting and holding you dear. And then, weep. Weep out your salty tears and broken prayers."
This, I have learned, is our holiest of ground—the most sacred of the sacred we hold for each other, a holy, amen.
🌸 Two Lovely Shares | An Artist 🎨 and Prompts for the Creative Process
One. David Hockney, the painter died on June 11, 2026. This short listen, 88 wearing his yellow glasses, speaking about beauty…
“The world is very, very beautiful if you look at it. But most people don’t look very much, do they?” - David Hockney.
Two. Have you heard of the Oblique Strategies? (I just learned about them and heard they make an exquisite gift too!)
A set of 115 white cards with simple black text in a deck subtitled Over One Hundred Worthwhile Dilemmas
Created by Brian Eno and multimedia artist Peter Schmidt, first published in 1975. Each card offers a challenging constraint intended to help break creative blocks— writing, painting, movement, teaching—strategies to support the creative process.
The fifth edition is available from Eno's website, click here
🌸 Closing Songs | by Marya Stark
I first learned about Marya Stark's voice and music through the podcast The Emerald.
She just released a new single Matriarchal Roar, a call to action song about breaking the silence. Some of you may know her song “Wild Sweets” click here
go my wild sweet
here for you as you for me
go my wild sweet
here for you as me
held
beheld
seeds and ashes
be meeting
🌸🙏Dedicate Merit In all mystical traditions, there is a closing prayer — prayers of blessing, gratitude, and protection. “The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear.” – Rumi
May you know you are not alone.
May poems, people, and all heavenly messengers call into your bone,
into your heart.
May you bloom wider than dreamed possible,
wider than the sky and know how wide are our wings!
— 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. 💖 ✨
--
Instructions for living a life:
Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.
- Mary Oliver
Website:https://www.wininimrod.com/
