Dear Friends ~

Wissahickon Blue by Susan Windle (Cover photo for Through the Gates, Book Two)

I hope my words find you and yours safe and in good health.

Here we are. Another holy week, another Passover fast upon us, and we are in in the midst of a global pandemic, a plague of epic proportions. Although I don’t know exactly what life will look like on the other side of this current crisis, I am convinced that a new and kinder world order struggles to break through the old ways. I do what I can to midwife, as I imagine you do too.

This will be quick message. I want to know who among you would like to be included with those who receive daily audio messages from me through the seven weeks of the Omer this year. (This year’s Omer count begins on the evening of April 9 and concludes on the evening of May 28.) This journey will be the second round through the work-in-progress that is Book 2, which I rolled out orally last year. I’ve got some more revisions to make, and it would help me if some of you listened. As in the first Omer book, each message is three to ten minutes in length and includes a poem embedded in a letter written to beloved companions, this time during the spring of 2017.

Let me know if you are interested in being one of my listening friends this year, and I will put you on that list. As I did last year, I will gratefully accept donations, if you are able, in multiples of $18 to support the work.You may give through Paypal to susan@susanwindle.com, or contact me and we will figure it out.

If you haven’t made your way through the forty-nine days with me before and think you would like to explore this practice, please take a look at my first book, Through the Gates—A Practice for Counting the Omer. This may be the year for you to begin! Although counting the Omer is embedded in Jewish tradition, you do not need to be Jewish or affiliated with any religious tradition at all to gain value from the practice. All that is needed is curiosity and a willingness to learn.

However you decide to navigate these narrow straits, I send you strength, clarity, and much love.

Your Life Now 

What if you knew
every breath was blessing,
pure and simple
gift that comes to you
unbidden, unsought,
comes to you freely
with no requirement
other than this: you
receive and return it,
transformed
through the crucible you are?

What if, holy container,
necessary cauldron,
you walked or moved
in any way you can move
through your hours
with this knowledge
of the gift embedded
in the marrow of your bones,
circling through
every rotation, every turn
you still can make?

How would you greet
your neighbors then,
knowing what you know
of receiving? Who
would you see when they pass
through your opened doors?

Blessings,

Susan