April 9, 1999

A Water Meditation at Dusk...

Dear Beth and Doug,

Please accept my heart-felt condolences on your loss. Death is that great
Mystery that we all will face one day, and may we hold those we have lost
close in our hearts until the time we rejoin them in the Mystery. I will do
a water meditation at dusk tonight to commemorate your father and my own
father and mother as well, and all those who were once with us yet are now
gone, and all those yet to come, and all sentient beings now living... for
water is a magical substance both familiar to us and infinitely mysterious
too, just as life and death.

Facing the setting sun I will first pour a circle of water to my left,
remembering, as I slowly pour the circle all those who have gone on and are
no longer with us here. To my right I will pour a second circle of water,
symbolizing those beings who are yet to come. And in front of me I will pour
a third circle of water to represent us here now, caught in the tension
between that which was and that which will forever be beyond our grasp. As
the rays of the setting sun bath my body so do they bath the three circles
on the Good earth from which all things come and go.

As a gentle breeze blows over me I will mourn the passing of loved ones and
yet rejoice that in love we are all bound to one another in ways that cannot
be fathomed. The fourth circle, that of the Good earth itself, bathed in the
last rays of the setting sun, is that which ties us all together. In the
midst of this fourth circle I will sit, just as I have always sat, touching
my beloved earth and listening to the voices of the wind, and I will
remember.

Best wishes, and peace be with you.

Dan

==

From Dan Glover of Indian Valley

Dan, thanks for your prayer meditation, and even more your thoughts,
feelings, and senses cowithin ours.