Prayers for the Broken

Memorial crosses symbolizing what is lost due to the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion and oil spill stand in the front yard of a house in Grand Isle, La., Tuesday, June 1, 2010. "This is breaking people," property owner Patrick Shay, not pictured, said of the spill's effect on Grand Isle residents. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky) Huffington Post

I am sitting in presence with the oil spill for the first time this morning, not because I've wanted to remain blissfully ignorant of this disaster, but because I know the depth of pain that is there and it is overwhelming for me, especially in my current openness to the energy of all life. I cannot stop crying. To attempt to hold space in my heart for all the human pain and animal/plant death is incredibly difficult. But necessary.

The Buddhist spiritual practice of Tonglen is to breathe in the suffering of the world and breathe out compassion and healing. I am doing this practice this morning and every morning from now on.

I pray for those who have the intelligence and education to find solutions to the spill and the damage it is causing.

I pray for all of the individuals and families impacted by this disaster to receive the emotional and financial support they need.

I pray for protection for the ocean, the plants and the animals that are still alive.

I pray for the awakening of us all so that we stop wounding ourselves and the planet in these terrible ways.

Blessing to Lovers

My love, you are a river fed by many streams

I bless all who shape you,

The lovers whose delights dance patterns on your back,

Those who carve your channels deeper, broader, wider,

Whitewater and backwater lovers,

Swamp lovers, sun-warmed estuary lovers,

Lovers with surface tension,

Lovers like boulders,

Like ice forming and breaking,

Lovers that fill and spill with the tides.

I bless those who teach you

and those who please you

and those who hurt you.

All those who make you who you are.

--Starhawk

Self-Care Check In

A week and a half ago I committed to 30 Days of Radical Self Care. I would like to update my follow-through status on my intentions:

The truth is that I was doing great until this last weekend. It felt as though something "fell" inside of me on Saturday night, even though I had a lovely weekend with Knight and friends. I don't know why or what prompted the drop, although I have some ideas. I feel more contracted than expansive. I feel a complacent cooling off in place of the fire of transformation and motivation I was experiencing. Allergies and headaches have thrown off my physical state. Chaos at work has me feeling unsettled, scared and sad. I need to find my center again. I am focusing on that today.

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1. Begin every day with prayer: Until a couple days ago I was reading either Prayer for Union or the Prayer for Love at the end of this post (or both) every morning. But I have been feeling compelled to pray more personally. Two days ago I changed the morning reminder on my phone (I use the calendar function to give me daily reminders of my intentions) from "prayer" to "pray for your self, your loved ones, your community and your world." Yet I am having trouble finding my voice for personal prayer and I'm easily distracted in my waking-up state. I am out of practice in talking to the Divine. I intend to explore my resistance to personal prayer through study and writing, and resume reading prayers in the meantime.

2. Write every day: I have written every day except last Saturday, when I was engaged in social engagements and never came home. I do not publish to the blog every day because sometimes I am not able to finish my posts. I am trusting Divine timing when it comes to publication.

3. Pay attention to my authentic impulses and speak my truth when I feel guided: I have definitely been speaking/writing my truth more, but I still have inhibitions that I am exploring. I have been speaking about my transformation out loud to friends more and more. And I have kept the lines of communication with Knight open no matter what.

4. Study: I have been reading from The Book of Awakening every morning. I am currently reading at least a couple pages from Love and Awakening every day (which is awesome!). Hmmm...seems to be a theme around awakening!

5. Friendship: The Universe has been gifting me with opportunities for nurturing friendship without effort. People are seeking me out to share time. It's quite lovely, but I don't want to count on others coming to me. I seek to reach out more as well, while maintaining a balance with time at home and in solitude. It would be really easy to immerse myself in social engagement, so this is an intention I need to be careful with.

6. Exercise: I did walk every single day until Monday. I didn't make the time on Monday and yesterday it was raining all day. However, I had a good hike on Sunday that was equivalent to two of my weekday walks. I think that giving myself room to miss a day and do more on other days is good. I need to make an effort to do yoga on the days I can't walk because of the weather.

7. Make better choices around food/nutrition and take a multi-vitamin every day: I have been taking the multi-vitamin, but I haven't made any changes regarding food and nutrition yet. I think I need to bring some consciousness to the idea of making nutritious choices as an act of self-love.

I am feeling good about my progress, even with the "drop" the last few days. The reality is that we are constantly changing and no matter how I strive for authentic joy and love on a day-to-day basis, I am human. I will have sick days, off-days, sad days, etc. If that is my authentic experience, then I must honor it, as long as I don't turn it into suffering.


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(This is a prayer by Mohamed from the Islam tradition. I changed the word Light to the word Love)

Prayer for Love

“O God, place love in my heart, and on my tongue love, and in my ears love and in my sight love, and above me love, and below me love, and to my right love, and to my left love, and before me love and behind me love.

Place in my soul love. Magnify for me love and amplify for me love.

Make for me love and make me love.

O God, grant me love, and place love in my nerves, and in my body love and in my blood love and in my hair love and in my skin love.

Increase me in love, increase me in love, increase me in love.

Grant me love upon love.”

A Prayer for Union

I was the "Valedictorian" at our Graduation Fire on Sunday and read this prayer to the circle. I read it every morning as part of my regimen of radical self-care:








A Prayer for Union by Daphne Rose Kingma
(From the book The Future of Love)

God of light Who calls us into being,
Who guards us on our way,
We pray for peace in our hearts in this season
Of the transformation of our relationships,
Of upheaval, of crumbling, of falling away.

As our relationships pass like sand through our fingers,
May we be blessed with the grace to know,
That this falling apart is, in truth,
Our journey of coming together,
Of finally returning home.

May we be startled awake by the memory of love,
The One Great Love that called us into being,
And is our only real destination.

May be have the strength to give up our search
for the "one"
Because, all together, we are The One,
And You are the True Beloved,
The ever-awaiting One,
Who allows us to move from love to love,
Knowing that You, our true selves,
Will always be there to meet us.

May we be released from the agony
Of wanting, hoping, dreaming, expecting.
May we instead be brought into the present moment
Of acceptance, grace, and simplicity,
Knowing that the sweet breath of love we breathe
In each relationship
Is the breath of the One Great Love.

Allow us to see that love is eternal,
Show us again and again
That love is larger than all its forms.
And may we go through these seasons of change,
In a state of surrender, of joy,
With the exact and perfect trust
That every step is ordained for a beautiful reason.

God of light Who calls us into being,
We pray for joy, for wisdom and compassion
In the relationships that we do have.
We pray for the willingness to grow,
For we want to be grander than we already are.

We pray for the sacred water of the One,
For our baptism, for our cleansing,
And our healing,
For our melting, for our joining.

We pray for light, for both inner and outer
illumination,
For the brilliance to see, to know, and to feel,
To imagine and to remember
That You are with us each step of the way,
That we are not alone.

We pray for appreciation, acceptance, and forgiveness
Of all the steps, and missteps, and sidesteps
That we have taken on the long journey
That will bring us to our sweet reunion,
That will finally carry us back home.

i thank you god

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any – lifted from the no
of all nothing – human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

~ e. e. cummings