In celebration we gather,
Knowing that what we celebrate is more
than the sum of the parts.
More than the number of submissions,
of contributors,
of letters on the pages.
We celebrate the depth of the well,
the ones whose lives have been blessed,
rituals that have brought people depth and meaning,
prayers that comforted and connected,
poetry that resonated and helped us find ourselves again.
We celebrate the Breath of Life.
That which comes through in our
prayers and prose,
in silence and sound,
in ritual and in running wild,
in our pleasure and our play.
And in splashes of color that we throw with abandon,
joyful laughter, tears of release.
A dance of thankfulness to be alive and in connection.
And we celebrate our ancestors.
All of those who have come before
with their struggles and joys.
Their movement across time and space.
The remnants of rituals and candlesticks they carried.
The garlic and familiarity they left behind.
The spontaneous prayers they whispered in dark corners.
The ways they made vibrant quilts with patches
of memory and lose threads of lineage.
We celebrate the presence of the Divine.
In our creations,
in our exchanges,
in our evolution, our revolution,
in our awe for mystery,
and the luminous glow of the moon’s many faces.
We celebrate the Source of Life
whose expansions and contractions bring new life.
Whose motions we emulate,
expanding and taking our place,
writing and painting and ritualizing,
in ways that bring her into our homes and our bodies.
And contracting,
always contracting.
To gather ourselves in
and to make room for others.
To ask: who is still missing?
Whose presence might make us ever more complete?
Learning ourselves through the practice of
taking turns
so that, to the newcomer,
we might seem as one organism,
breathing in and out,
when, all the while,
we are in an intricate dance,
taking space and making space,
lifting each other up.
Our constant flowing movement
weaving a fabric that can bear
the weight of far more than we are.
We may have been taught
that we are each a link
in an unbroken chain.
This we joyfully defy!
We are kinking the chain of tradition,
each of us a precious jewel that adorns her.
And so we celebrate
the many ways in which Ritualwell
nourishes our hearts,
slakes the thirst of our souls,
brings our bodies into connection with spirit.
After a lifetime of making space,
of making ritual,
of making magic,
of waiting…
Today we can clearly see
That we are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
And that, with Shekhinah’s grace,
we fulfill our own collective promise.
We’re the ones we’ve been waiting for
It is upon us to dream beyond us
We’re the ones we’ve been waiting for
