This week’s enCouraging Bliss task is to make a list of bliss-full blessings we’ve experienced over the last week.
I’m going to concentrate on one day: the Enneagram workshop day I led yesterday at Turvey Abbey in Bedfordshire.
A group of around 20 of us who learned the Enneagram at the Turvey Benedictine monastic community gathered there to learn, to talk and laugh together, to connect deeply.
Seeing and being seen
In an email to me afterwards, a friend said it is only in experiences like this that she feels she can be herself, that she is truly seen for herself and can see others in the same way. I feel the same, so that is the first blessing.
Friendship
Our group was mixed in history together; some of us have met many times before, others never, but there was an immediate bond of friendship between us. The second blessing.
Prayer
Perhaps it’s unnecessary to pick out formal prayer in a day that seemed full of prayer, but to me, Mass seemed particularly moving yesterday, particularly intimate. The third blessing.
Vulnerability
Life is not perfect. Sometimes it is incredibly difficult, sometimes we are in terrible physical or emotional pain, and sometimes we think we are being tested more than we can stand. This was apparent in various ways yesterday. And yet we continue. The fourth blessing.
Food
While others go hungry, we sat eating lunch outside, warmed by the early summer sun and cooled by a slight breeze. The fifth blessing.
Memory
I sat alone for a while after lunch in a walled garden in the Abbey grounds. I sat on a wooden chair with words inscribed in memory of a good man who died a few years ago and used to sit in that garden. I remembered him and so many others who have made life better by living. The sixth blessing.
Beauty
As I sat in that walled garden, I closed my eyes. I could smell the rosemary bush and lilac blossoms to my right, I could hear birdsong and the droning of a bee. I opened my eyes to watch the bee right next to me dipping into the rosemary flowers. I don’t know if it’s the air of sanctity, but they have bumble-bees almost as big as humming birds at Turvey! As I left the garden, my eye was caught by a single tangerine-coloured poppy against a group of bluebells. The seventh blessing.
Laughter
You know, sometimes laughter can be used as an avoidance tactic. But we often need to laugh at ourselves and laugh with others. The test is whether compassion is also present – for ourselves as much as for others. If it is, then laughter can be the most healing of medicines, and we laughed warmly together yesterday. Appropriate on World Laughter Day that this is the eighth blessing.
Images: mine, taken at Turvey Abbey
Elsewhere:
Today is also a very special day – Towanda is being ordained. I’m so very happy for this great blessing. And Carl takes his first simple promises as a lay Cistercian. Wonderful news.
{ 11 comments… read them below or add one }
Hello Tess!
I was really touched by your comments concerning the man who had a bench dedicated to his memory. You said that he made life better by living . . . I think that’s lovely, and if that’s all we ever aspire to, then we’ve reached the pinnacle!
I love how you approached this. This is a lovely post, and I bet you could have done this with any day you chose. How one beautiful thing builds on the others and leads to the next, even in imperfection, even in remembering loved ones gone ….
Tess, when I first started following your blog, I searched out some information on what an
Enneagram is. And that was interesting. But then later I just happened to land on an Enneagram test page as a result of researching the background of CHI energy. Since I had a generally positive sense of Enneagram via your blog, I filled in a rather long questionnaire as honestly as I could. The results brought forward in my mind something I had been misidentifying — when I was younger so many things used to overwhelm me I had to filter some of it out. But with more life experience, I realized, after taking the test, there was no longer any need to repress. I could handle more and work with it creatively!
Tess, Yes, what a beautiful way you approached this. Thank you! I love the “micro” aspect of it. Perhaps I’ll use this idea to expand/contract the exercise in the future.
A lovely post. I love that you included vulnerability as a blessing.
@Andy: thank you for your comment and so glad to see you back and writing again after your op. I agree, this is a great thing to aspire to. And I think it’s as much the gentle ‘everyday’ people as the great figures of our times that make a difference.
@Lisa: I think at it’s best, this is what life is like, one thing building on another.
@kigen: I’m so glad to hear you had this positive experience and are self-aware enough for this realisation. The Enneagram has been really important in my own journey. One word of caution is that the tests aren’t 100% accurate – mostly teachers advise that your Enneagram type will most likely be in the top few scores, but it may not necessarily be your highest scoring one.
@Blisschick: I’m glad to have done this in a ‘micro’ way – I hadn’t realised I was doing anything that clever!
@tinkerbell: maybe vulnerability is the greatest blessing in some ways. It’s where we learn the most if we allow ourselves.
thanks, tess!
Really sorry I missed the reunion, hopefully I’ll make the next one. Glad you all had a good day.
Beautiful, blessed, blissful moments. Thanks for recalling them here today and sharing them.
xoxo
A beautiful, inspiring post, Tess. Thank you.
I have approached the enneagram alone, and always got lost somehow. Some day I will encounter a guide who will make it all clear and simple.
This cistercian abbey sounds lovely.
Not many would see vulnerability as a blessing. Great post!