because world and body are meant to pattern one another, when he reimagines his body he reimagines his world*
Lewis Hyde

For me to be a saint means to be myself. Therefore the problem of sanctity and salvation is a problem of finding out who I am and of discovering my true self.
Thomas Merton

John O’Donohue’s collections of blessings for different experiences and environments intrigue and encourage me with the possibility that we are each capable of being a blessing to one another.

Just how is connected with our values and our talents.

Perhaps surprisingly, then, the place to begin is with ourselves.

Lewis Hyde’s trickster character, changes his or herself in order to manipulate the world to their desires, but in so doing only helps us to imagine the kind of trickster who changes in order to bless the world.

So we give ourselves the times and spaces in order to discover what we have to give.

We needn’t worry about Thomas Merton’s use of what appears to be religious language, he knew there is more to all of us than we allow. More concerning is, if we are unable to reimagine ourselves towards our true self, we will more likely be unable to reimagine our worlds.

Mythologist Joseph Campbell speaks of the transformative powers shown by people towards their environments throughout the ages:

To claim the land. To turn the land where they lived into a place of spiritual relevance. … One should find the symbol in the landscape itself of the energies of the life there. That is what all traditions do. They sanctify their own landscape.^

Change within begets change without.

*From Lewis Hyde’s Trickster Makes This World;
**Thomas Merton, quoted in Ian Morgan Cron’s The Road Back to You;
^From Joseph Campbell and Bill Moyers’ The Power of Myth.