On this day of ashes, we bow our heads and receive the ancient mark—a smudged cross that speaks a truth our souls already know. “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” These words call us back to ourselves, to the ground of our being, to the humble recognition of our mortality.
There is profound grace in this remembrance. For in acknowledging our dustiness, we also recognize the divine breath that animates it. We are both earth and spirit, temporal and eternal, limited and transcendent. The paradox of our existence is written upon our foreheads today. The psalmist knew this truth: “As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who revere him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.” Our Creator knows our fragility and loves us not despite it, but within it. The One who shaped us from the earth holds our impermanence with tender care.
As we begin this Lenten journey, we are invited to examine what has accumulated in our lives—the distractions, the false securities, the masks we wear. What dust has settled on the surface of your soul that obscures your true nature? What patterns have hardened that no longer serve your growth?
The psychologist Carl Jung reminds us that “in the shadow is the gold.”
Often what we resist examining contains the very treasures we seek.
Our wounds, when brought to light, become portals to wisdom.
Our limitations, when embraced, reveal unexpected strengths.
In the Jungian tradition, this season mirrors the soul’s journey toward wholeness—the integration of all aspects of self, both light and shadow.
The ashen cross unites opposites: death and life, emptiness and fullness, endings and beginnings.
As you move through this sacred day, carry this paradox gently. Feel the texture of your own mortality. Notice how it deepens your presence, how it invites you to discern what truly matters.
The Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh would call this “touching impermanence”—a practice that awakens us to the precious nature of each moment.
Remember that the same hands that formed you from dust hold you still.
The ground beneath your feet is holy. And the journey ahead—through desert and darkness, through release and renewal—is one your soul recognizes, for it is the eternal spiral of transformation that winds through all of creation.