To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

by John O'Donohue

From the author of the bestselling Anam Cara comes a beautiful collection of blessings to help readers through both the everyday and the extraordinary events of their lives.John O’Donohue, Irish teacher and poet, has been widely praised for his gift of drawing on Celtic spiritual traditions to create words of inspiration and wisdom for today. In To Bless the Space Between Us, his compelling blend of elegant, poetic language and spiritual insight offers readers comfort and encouragement on their journeys through life. O’Donohue looks at life’s thresholds—getting married, having children, starting a new job—and offers invaluable guidelines for making the transition from a known, familiar world into a new, unmapped territory. Most profoundly, however, O’Donohue explains “blessing” as a way of life, as a lens through which the whole world is transformed.O’Donohue awakens readers to timeless truths and shows the power they have to answer contemporary dilemmas and ease us through periods of change.

Genres: Poetry, Spirituality, Nonfiction, Christian, Religion, Faith, Prayer

242 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

John O'Donohue, Ph.D., was born in County Clare in 1956. He spoke Irish as his native language and lived in a remote cottage in the west of Ireland until his untimely death in January 2008. A highly respected poet and philosopher, he lectured throughout Europe and America and wrote a number of popular books, including Anam Cara and To Bless the Space Between Us.

Reviews

[Casey Pick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book of blessing-poems, and I suppose the simplest way to express its impact on me is to say that I was blessed when my friend put this book into my hands. Over the course of a summer away from home, I read it cover to cover, and the experience was like being a stone that fell into a creek - gradually, gently, each page worked to wear away some rough edges, leaving a new smoothness of spirit behind. I can't really point to a particular piece that sticks out in my mind - it isn't that kind of book - but I get the sense that having read it left behind impressions and concepts that will continue to shade my perspective of life and the spirit for a long time to come. When i get home, I plan on purchasing my own copy to keep on the shelf - I can't give a better compliment to a book than that.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful collection of blessings by John O'Donohue, that has come out just month's after his untimely death. His celtic poems and voice are eloquent. His blessings are absolutely beautiful. Listening to him read them, with his Irish dialect, is captivating. At the end of the book, he writes about retrieving the lost art of blessings. "Something deep in the human soul seems to depend on the presence of kindness; something instinctive in us expects it, and once we sense it we are able to trust and open ourselves."

To Come Home to Yourself

May all that is unforgiven in you
Be released.

May your fears yield
Their deepest tranquilities.

May all that is unlived in you
Blossom into a future
Graced with love.

Through his other works and through this collection of blessings, this ex-priest, Irish writer and poet offers inspiration and comfort.

[Brandy Walker · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Blessed" is a grossly overused word. But, this. This is different! There is something so pure about a blessing: words woven together with a delicate pen so that someone else might experience joy and love and happiness. I use this to bless people weekly, if not daily. Amazing.

[Philip Yancey]

This Irish Celtic priest is one of my favorites, and his book of prayers apply to most of life's major events. Beautiful writing.

[India M. Clamp · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book may be unto panacea for the soul. With orchestrations by O’Donahue like, “What is nearest to the heart is often farthest from the word… Each blessing is intended to present a minimal psychic portrait of the geography of change it names. Without warning, thresholds can open directly before our feet.

"May you be blessed with a wise and compassionate guide
Who can accompany you through the fear and grief
Until your heart has wept its way to your true self."
---John O'Donohue

Reviewing "To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings," encompasses a journey via what O’Donohue terms as an “invocation” or to him a benediction. Such is sinewy in the ways we try to grasp a dandelion benediction in the air. Whatever his blessing may be its opaque--- this invocation he refers to emanated from something beyond what physics may explain. In the meantime, grasping broad organic trunks and climbing up the textured surfaces of Donahues' " benediction" with an ethereal permanence: is a trek many endeavor to achieve via a quotidian door.

[Cindy Rollins · Rating 5 out of 5]

My friend Kim Huitt sent me one of these blessings and I loved it so much I immediately bought this book which turned out to be perfect Lenten reading. Here is one of my favorite blessings from the book:

FOR LONGING
Blessed be the longing that brought you here
And quickens your soul with wonder.
May you have the courage to listen to the voice of desire
That disturbs you when you have settled for something safe.
May you have the wisdom to enter generously into your own unease
To discover the new direction your longing wants you to take.
May the forms of your belonging—in love, creativity, and friendship—
Be equal to the grandeur and the call of your soul.
May the one you long for long for you.
May your dreams gradually reveal the destination of your desire.
May a secret Providence guide your thought and nurture your feeling.
May your mind inhabit your life with the sureness with which your body inhabits the world.
May your heart never be haunted by ghoststructures of old damage.
May you come to accept your longing as divine urgency.
May you know the urgency with which God longs for you.

And the one my friend sent me is equally beautiful.

Beannacht

On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.

And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The grey window
And the ghost of loss
Gets in to you,
May a flock of colours,
Indigo, red, green,
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
In the currach of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life.

[Cheri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Years ago I listened to John O’Donahue’s Beauty: The Invisible Embrace, my first audio listen, and it was lovely and magical. At some point later, I read his Anam Cara, the copy that I read was one I’d bought for my mother, one of her books that I’d claimed for my own after she passed. The past two mornings I’ve listened to his To Bless the Space Between Us which shares his thoughts on the blessings we require, receive. Those when we are at a loss over some grief we are dealing with, when we are faced with some transition in our lives, or just have a need to be heard. Change can be welcome, exhilarating or it can be devastating.

Shared with so much beauty and reverence, these poetic invocations are lovely, made even more so by listening to O’Donahue sharing them, hearing his words.

’We enter the world as strangers, who all at once become heirs to a harvest of memory, spirit and dream. That has long preceded us, and will now enfold, nourish and sustain us. Therefore the gift of the world is our first blessing.’

This reads like a combination of the beauty of Celtic spirituality, of poetry, and the ancient words of men and women of wisdom. At times it is almost haunting in its beauty.

’So home is where the heart is, it stands for the sure center where individual life is shaped, and from where it journeys forth. And it also says something really deep about a person if they can learn to be at home in themselves. Because when you’re at home in yourself, then you’re integrated, you have balance, and poise. And in a sense, this is exactly what spirituality is. Spirituality is the act of homecoming.’

‘Let us bless
The imagination of the Earth,
That knew early the patience
To harness the mind of time,
Waited for the seas to warm,
Ready to welcome the emergence
Of things dreaming of voyaging
Among the stillness of land.

And how light knew to nurse
The growth until the face of the Earth
Brightened beneath a vision of color.

When the ages of ice came
And sealed the Earth inside
An endless coma of cold,
The heart of the Earth held hope,
Storing fragments of memory,
Ready for the return of the sun.

Let us thank the Earth
That offers ground for home
And holds our feet firm
To walk in space open
To infinite galaxies.

Let us salute the silence
And certainty of mountains:
Their sublime stillness,
Their dream-filled hearts.

[Laurie Buchanan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the last book from Irish poet and spiritual teacher John O'Donohue, one of the most lyrical writers of our times, who died suddenly and unexpectedly in January 2008.

A blessing breaks down the barriers between people and is the ultimate form of intimacy. It changes the environment around us and opens new possibilities of connection, healing, and transformation. O'Donohue laments that in the West we have "no rituals to protect, encourage, and guide us as we cross over into the unknown." The blessings he has written are divided into seven sections representing the major rhythms of the human journey:

Beginnings, desires, thresholds, homecomings, states of the heart, callings, and beyond endings.

Since receiving this book as an anniversary gift in 2008, we use it on a regular basis: each evening before going to sleep, and when getting together with friends for a meal. Rather than saying 'grace,' we select a blessing to read out loud. It has added a wonderful element to our gatherings.

[Abany · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the richest books I've ever had the pleasure of reading.
Incredible source for family, ministry, prayers, toasts and even times of remembrance.
Mr. O'Donohue uses the most beautiful and poetic language to bless our modern day with life, hope + restoration for the soul.

[Erik Carlson · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is impossible to choose a favorite blessing, so I will share one that I have turned to many times over the years.

For Courage

When the light around lessens
And your thoughts darken until
Your body feels fear turn
Cold as a stone inside,

When you find yourself bereft
Of any belief in yourself
And all you unknowingly
Leaned on has fallen,

When one voice commands
Your whole heart,
And it is raven dark,

Steady yourself and see
That it is your own thinking
That darkens your world,

Search and you will find
A diamond-thought of light,

Know that you are not alone,
And that this darkness has purpose;
Gradually it will school your eyes,
To find the one gift your life requires
Hidden within this night-corner.

Invoke the learning
Of every suffering
You have suffered.

Close your eyes.
Gather all the kindling
About your heart
To create one spark
That is all you need
To nourish the flame
That will cleanse the dark
Of its weight of festered fear.

A new confidence will come alive
To urge you towards higher ground
Where your imagination
will learn to engage difficulty
As its most rewarding threshold!

[Sarah Clarke-Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recently heard John O'Donohue on one of my favorite podcasts, "On Being.” I fell in love with his Irish accent and his message of beauty, souls and sense of the meaning of life. I loved his sharing and perspective on ancient Celtic wisdom, German philosophers and even bits of his Christian message about what God is. “The word blessing evokes a sense of warmth and protection; it suggests that no life is alone or unreachable. Each life is clothed in rainment of spirit that secretly links it to everything else. “

“To Bless the Space Between Us” (isn’t that a lovely thought?) is a book of blessings to encourage comfort throughout life’s journeys and different thresholds (for making the transition into new unmapped territories). I found several of the poetic blessings so moving that I asked for a copy of the book for my birthday. This book of blessings was compiled posthumously, and divides the different blessings up into different life stages with a beautiful introduction into each section: Beginnings, Desires, Thresholds, Homecomings, States of Heart, Callings, and Beyond Endings. The blessings provide perspective and hope as we journey through life, I've loved holding on to some of the thoughts as I make my way through the day.

One of my favorites:

On Waking
I give thanks for arriving
Safely in a new dawn,
For the gift of eyes
To see the world,
The gift of mind
To feel at home
In my life.
The waves of possibility
Breaking on the shore of dawn,
The harvest of the past
That awaits my hunger,
And all the furthering
This new day will bring.

[Travel Writing · Rating 5 out of 5]

John O'Donahue's last book, published after his untimely death, is one of the most profoundly touching books I have ever encountered.

I am not sure I can say I merely read this book, I more inhabited it. I reach for it when I need a moment of grace, a moment of support, or a moment of remembrance that we are all ephemeral.

John O'Donahue writes: ...it has been one of the deepest longings of the human heart to strain against the erosion of one's life, to find a way of living and being that manages to find some stable ground within time, a place from where something eternal can be harvested from our disappearance.
This is what all art strives for; the creation of a living permanence.

To Bless the Space Between Us is a living permanence of John O'Donahue's disappearance, and the poignancy that the space between us is now death is so painfully beautiful.

[Mila · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly beautiful. I’ll come back to this book of Celtic blessings for years to come. My first John O’Donohue book and it will not be my last.

[Justin Wiggins · Rating 5 out of 5]

This amazing Irish poet and philosopher had a great understanding of language, and I often re-read many of these prayers about death, birth, marriage, loneliness, depression, joy, meals, solitude, joy, celebration, love, community, art, and grace with great joy.
This book came to me at just the time in my life when I needed it, and for that i am immensely thankful.

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a book of blessings for things you might expect (a new home, a birthday, retirement) but also so many other blessings: a blessing for courage, for friendship, for an addict, for one who is exhausted, for a nurse, on meeting a stranger...it's all so beautiful and alive and dealing directly with souls. The author divides the blessings into sections and the end of the book is what he describes as, "a poetic essay on recovering the lost art of blessing." I don't think there has been a single day since I started reading the book that I didn't think about "recovering the lost art of blessing."

And there's this-

"The spirit of a time is an incredibly subtle, yet hugely powerful force. And it is comprised of the mentality and spirit of all individuals together. Therefore, the way you look at things is not simply a private matter. Your outlook actually and concretely affects what goes on. When you give in to helplessness, you collude with despair and add to it. When you take back your power and choose to see the possibilities for healing and transformation, your creativity awakens and flows to become an active force of renewal and encouragement in the world."

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I...I don't know.

Perhaps it was that I didn't attend to its stated purpose as a book of informal liturgics. Perhaps my aesthetic is unrefined, or overly refined. Perhaps I brought a warped expectation, shaped by the delicious couplets and quatrains whose excerpted sharing drew me to this book.

Here and there, it was lovely and meaningful. It comes, clearly, from a gracious soul. I did not dislike it.

But more often than not, it didn't quite work. I wanted it to work, to sing, to resonate. I felt like it should. Everyone else likes it! It is much beloved! But it didn't work. Not for me.

But clearly, it sang for others. Poetry is like that.

So if the Spirit moves, and you feel you might find meaning in it, do try it, by all means.

[Cheri · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wanted to love this book. It had such promise--a book of blessings for all occasions, written by an Irish author who had a Celtic theological bent. Despite the author's claim that these are blessings (and that he prays in Jesus' name), the "open-endedness" of their language dilutes any power they have as Celtic Christian blessings and makes them feel more like random lines of words (the author takes great pains to say it's not poetry...so who am I to argue? :) ) Other parts were just not blessings that I could see using. Would you ever recite as a blessing for your work: "May you never become lost in bland absences"?

[Pat Loughery · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely gorgeous poetic words of blessing for everyday events in life: birth, illness, breaking up, entering adulthood, meeting a stranger, so many others.

John o'Donohue's voice is sacred and whimsical and wise and dearly missed,

I would rate this book 7 stars on a scale from 1 to 5. It is that beautiful.

For a fantastic interview of O'Donohue, see Krista Tippett's podcast On Being, at http://being.publicradio.org/programs..., completed just prior yonhis untimely death. It helps so much to hear his words within his brogue.

[Jenny Benson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Do yourself a favor and get this in hard copy. You'll return to it again and again. It's a great way to stop and take in the moment when you're starting something new, at a life threshold, or just experiencing loss or love.
"A blessing evokes a privileged intimacy. It touches that tender membrane where the human heart cries out to its divine ground."

[Jennifer Kunin · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite books are the ones I can go back to over and over again and not get tired of it. This to me is one of those books. O'Donohue is one of the wisest people in the world to me (re: his On Being podcast), and this books of blessings is no exception. I just want to tape all of his writing up around my room and my house and everywhere I go. Seriously if I could write half as beautifully as he does I'd be the happiest person in the WORLD.

This really is a book that I'll go back to for years to come and I am obsessed with it.

"To Come Home to Yourself:

May all that is unforgiven in you
Be released.

May your fears yield
Their deepest tranquilities.

May all that is unloved in you
Blossom into a future
Graced with love."

[Jenna Watson · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Time behaves differently when blessing is evoked.”

A beautiful, non-trite book to awaken you to the blessing of existence, and to the part we can play in richly blessing that existence. The actual blessings that make up the bulk of this book are nice, but the commentary at the end is what I really recommend. Love the idea of time as a creative occasion that we, as the artists of our lives, have the power to shape. And the idea of “found” blessings like friendship that become visible in retrospect.

“Perhaps we bless one another all the time, without even realizing it.”

[Brittany Pearce · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so precious to me. Mid-read (I was reading a library copy) I bought it, so I could have it always. This is a collection of poetic blessings to meet every one of life's moments, both assured and those that only may come. It is a book that you will be glad to own so that when/if they come, you can refer to the accompanying blessing. I appreciate that way the author encourages a lifestyle of blessing. So dear.

[Marianne Mullen · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a beautiful book of poems to honor times and events in our lives needing a blessing. O'Donohue's words speak right to my soul and give me expression for what is within me that I struggle to describe. This little book is packed with love, grace, and unending wisdom. I keep it close to read for whatever my heart and soul needs to hear, or share with others.

[Madison · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gift from Jon & Maeg that I use frequently. Beautiful.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this book slowly so as not to rush through the blessings. Really enjoyed this book and will probably go back to it many times.

[Yolanda Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

Breathtaking and filled with beauty that reaches a place deeper than words. I hope to read this again and again.

[M. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oh boy, am I choosing all the bad books? Am I? Because that seems to be the case. I wanted to mark this as the "devotional" prompt for the book challenge, I'm not going to. I'm severely disappointed. I suppose Celtic Christianity suffers the same new agey kidnapping as the Franciscan Order. After all, many people think of St. Patrick as some hippie.

I was hoping some poetic license from what I saw on reviews, and on accounts of knowing the author was "a poet". But not this. If you really like Celtic Spirituality, as in Monastic based- St. Patrick infused sort of stuff, this is not it. You've been warned. This is the ugly, annoying "cousin", New Age.

John O'Donohue, may he rest in peace, was an ex-Catholic priest. And it shows, man has internalized Scriptures and Augustinian, some Celtic Catholic insight like quoting parts of the Lorick of St. Patrick at random times or "May perpetual light shine upon the faces of all who rest here" (yes, copying the prayer for the deceased and the blessing given to Moses by God), the prayer to our guardian angel, Psalms, Maitins and Vespers, etc.

He can make some criticisms of contemporary culture, how consumerism is warped desire, and have some poignant lines and other points in the prologues of the sections.

However, that's where it ends. The blessings feel generic, repetitive and something out of an Anselm Grun or some such generic self-help book disguised as spirituality. In fact, the feeling is quite similar.

Unlike blessings, they rarely ever mention any of the Three Persons of the Trinity, mentions to God are sparse and casual. They seem more of the hit-enter variety of "lyricism" we have been seeing lately. Strangely enough, right away he mentions that the Holy Spirit is much less of a conflictive term than God (right). To then put a straightforward explanation of the Trinity in the prologue to the section "States of the Heart".

He also invents "angels" like he's talking about the nine muses of the arts as well. Look, I know you wanna feel good and fuzzy inside, I don't blame you, but... angels are terrifying "beings of light" (and not in the fuzzy, warm and meaningless contemporary sense).

I blinked at some of the verses, too focused on "the wonder of your own heart", as if sin didn't exist. But poems he intended to be too particular, like "At The Threshold of Womanhood" and "At The Threshold of Manhood" repeat the concepts of "grace and elegance", and though they might have some good intentions or advice in what it means to be a man or woman: not impose your will, to respect yourself and conduct yourself properly.... men and women are required to enter into the feminine, because that's what's required to become a woman, whose "body has a mind of its own" (I have two brains, wowzers, it explains the super fast reading!) and because the masculine is inherently silent, otherwise men cannot feel.

This feminine intergration mumbo jumbo is old as time and somehow is some Orientalist, Gnostic, Jungian, Petersonian stupidity that gets regurgitated in glitter every single time.

It also has Romantic Feelsies about How Animals Are Better Beings than Us, baptized in "the name of the wind, the light and the rain" and Nature, as it calls water "Our first mother", because Nature is "imaginative, humble", "rhythm of the universe", "infinte galaxies", etc.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm conflicted about this. I was hoping to love it. It seemed right up my alley — O'Donohue even described the act of blessing as "like the discovery of a fresh well" in the "parched deserts of postmodernity," which is exactly the sort of metaphor I find tantalizing.

And I did like a lot of the book. Each blessing is written a loose poetic form and addresses one topic, life event, or challenge. There were a few — "For Eros", "For Love in the Time of Conflict", and "For Belonging" — that I loved.

(Here's a great couplet from "For Love in the Time of Conflict":

Reach out with sure hands
To take the chalice of your love,
And carry it carefully through this echoless waste

Which totally reminds me of that incredible scene in Tarkovsky's Nostalgia, you know, the one with the candle? Now there's an image!)

That's the positive. The negative is that I found O'Donohue's metaphysics... cloyingly optimistic? Disconnected from reality? Vague and platitudinous?

The frustrating thing is that it's his tone, more than his positions, that bothers me. I know that says as much or more about me than it does about O'Donohue. Since I loved his On Being interview about landscapes, maybe I'll just chalk this one up to a poor reader/book match and leave it at that.

[Jerry Winsett · Rating 5 out of 5]

To Bless the Space... is one of those, "I read this over and over" books. I find a trip through O'Donohue's prose blessings to be good for the soul. And I frequently use it as a resource for readings when doing service, homilies, sermons or speeches.

One need to to belong to a religion of any kind to give, or to receive a blessing. Blessing someone doesn't require faith other than YOUR faith that the blessing is made and received with love. In fact, in the forwards, O'Donohue specifically states that he does not use the word God in these blessings. A friend of mine sneezed once long ago and I said "Shiva Bless You". She looked at me inquisitively and I said, "any god works".

Anyway, I digress. I like this book. A lot.

A quote:
"The industry of distraction
Makes us forget
That we live in a universe..."

[Julie Vandlen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book of blessings by the Irish poet John O'Donohue is essential for those going through transitions in life or anyone in need of insight. I am eternally reading this book because it sits next to my bed and i pick it up and read an installment as i need one. O'Donohue has included blessings for many stages of life; a new job, for the new mother, new beginning, or simply for emotions being experienced. It is beautifully written and I feel that everyone should own this book because you never know when you'll need a unique perspective and comforting words from a truly gifted philosopher.