Blessings For Those At the Threshold of Manhood - John O'Donohue

As you leave the blurred wood you entered while still a boy,

And light clarifies around your emerging, manly form,

May you discover gradually a natural confidence in your body.


May your new strength be graceful as you learn to carry yourself

With a dignity that is sure, bringing your gestures and expression

Into an easy harmony and rhythm.


May you never feel the need to be coarse, or force yourself;

Rather, may you receive your manhood with grace and mindful ease;

Then, at one with your own elegance, your presence will claim it’s radiance.


May you awaken confidently to the feminine within you,

and learn to integrate the beauty

Of intuition and feeling so that your sensitivity kindles and your heart is trusted.


That you may slowly grow to trust the silence of the masculine

As the home of your stillness.

Though it will be always difficult to find the words for what you feel,

May you find ease in that awkwardness, until gradually from beneath

The gravel of stuttered sounds, the pure flow of you emerges.


Be gentle with yourself, learn to integrate the negative,

Harnessing its force to cross the boundaries

That would confine you.


Love the life of your mind, furnishing it ever with new thought

So that your countenance glows with the joy of being alive.


Be vigilant and true to an inner honor that will not allow

Anger or resentment to make you captive.


Always have the courage to change,

welcoming those voices that call you beyond yourself.

Beyond your work and action, remain faithful to your heart

For you to deepen and grow

Into a man of dignity and nobility.


- John O'Donohue, from his book To Bless the Space Between Us.


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