Morning Prayer

Anonymous

The author took our class, “She Reveals Herself,” our first course dedicated to meandering around the Divine Feminine in the time of the Apocalypse, in the midst of his own shifting faith and agony at his work for climate change amidst a community that, too often, seemed far too satisfied with the status quo.  In the midst of his own internal and our collective external chaos, he had this experience, which he shared with our class. While this was originally shared as a reflection, it is also very much a prayer of giving thanks, perhaps in the tradition of the psalms. With his permission, we turned the format into a poem/song of thanksgiving. At his request, we are publishing this anonymously.

In this first reflection I hear the cry to know the name of God: to utter it, however imperfectly, that we may draw closer to that Spirit, be She within us or far from us, around us or beside us.   The second reflection came later, as a quick thank you note to the course. As the individual is also in community, and as our individual mystical moments so often are woven within the larger fabric of community weaves, it felt appropriate to join these two pieces together: the thanks to God for a glimpse of Divinity, and a thanks to a community gathered, as it were, around a fire: one of many circles gathered around many fires which are, somehow, the same fire.

Prayers of Communing and Thanks

I woke up this morning amidst usual random thoughts and then centered on the purpose of communication with the Divine. 

I promised my Navajo friend I would say a rosary for her relative and their family, whom, like far too many, had died of COVID in a hospital without her family.  Last night, I started the rosary that night but fell asleep, but also knowing the Divine would accept  completion in due time.

I started prayer as is my habit, desiring increased intentionality and sincerity, with the Sign of the Cross:  

Yahweh, 

Wakan Tanka (Great Spirit/Mystery in Lakota), 

Bathala (God in Tagalog), 

Jesus Christos, greatest human manifestation ever of the Divine (to me), 

and then back and forth with each phrase:

 Tankashila (ancestors in Lakota), 

Holy Anyitus (ghosts in language of the Ivatans), 

Holy Spirit, 

Spiritus Sanctus, 

Sante Esprit . . . 

This morning feeling incrementally more the tangible physical manifestation of the Sign:

creating a web,

a shield,

a home for the fire of the Holy Spirit, 

housed deep within behind my solar plexus,

emanating within,

outwards, 

feeling the interconnection that is 

the Divine, and me.

Resting upon increased understanding of the closer connection we have to the spirits, through the spirits of the Saints, people of good will, my ancestors, those of my family who have died, understanding they are with us - ready to help if we ask with authentic humility. 

Thank you, my ancestors - especially my grandparents, my uncles, my aunts, my cousin whom I have been blessed to know - you have so helped me, and I feel you perhaps more deeply than ever right now, and am grateful, and more confident, that you are with me. 

Realizing ever more fully that:

the Divine is around, 

and within me,

I, also everything, nothing, and something, 

here am part of the Divine

if I so choose, 

a drop in the river of life,

if splashed outward to disappear, 

if to be a part, then part of the divine flow.  (metaphor from St. Charbel)  

"Have mercy on me, poor in spirit.  Please hear my prayers for --- and her family.  Lift up ---- spirit into the divine light, love, beauty, and peace."  

I can only hope this is good enough for now, because I'm in an interesting space right now, putting off that rosary, which you know I have a hard time completing, but which I promised, so I'm going to go with this for now . . .  

I turned again to the Great Mystery/Spirit/God.

the first source.

checking as is a massive exercise, 

on if / when 

the masculine and white archetype appeared in my conception,

as has been my wont 

due to social conditioning,

and is increasingly unacceptable. 

Sometimes it has come straight before me.  Oft-times I have fought it.  (resistance (as a tactic here) is futile).  

More recently seeing it, sighing, then adding:

and Great Mother

 - and moving to -

Omniscience, 

Omnipotent, 

Who Am, 

Who Is, 

Present, 

this Moment – 

in as expansive an understanding of Omniscience as possible in this physical form – 

how Divine intelligent design has before me this air that I can breathe –

80% nitrogen/20% oxygen –

these lungs to take it in –

the first and most essential interaction between our physical selves and Omniscience –

(among so many other awarenesses that could brought to bear - the silence, the dawn chorus of the birds welcoming the sun, the hum of the HVAC . . . )

thank you my God  -

it is all your gift of the moment.

This morning, in this evolving spiralling outward exercise, a divine image formed in my mind's eye.  

Perfectly oval face, 

eyelids almost fully closed, 

huge eyelashes, 

slight smile, 

emanating great peace and love, 

emanating both divine feminine and masculine (without conscious prompting - thank you God!), colored in geometric swatches like a cubist painting – 

varying hues of brown –

the eternal variation of the skin tones of all of humanity 

For this Image

Oh God

I can only say

thank you . . .  

beyond words can say . . . an image and feeling I have been blessed to have been given, and hope to carry evermore.

…

To my fellow classmates, whom I did not know before participating: 

Thank you for sharing with me the unique prisms of the spirit of astonishing openness, vulnerability, insight, enlightenment, courage and love - among other manifestations (it could go on and on for real, yes?) - that is within each one of you.  I feel blessed by the tapestries we wove together, the dances we danced together.  

Precious time and space in more ethereal forms than we are accustomed, in these astonishing times where forms, time, space and countless conceptual foundations are awash in waters of uncertainty.  

How shall we navigate in these waters?

Are the waters blending new colors and brilliance into the prismatic light?

Dissolving the fabric, loosening the strings, freeing the contents of baggage?  

Pivoting away from flooded lands to irrigate new and more bountiful fields, where new fruits, flowers, vegetables, grains, grasses and trees and their multitudinous companions can flourish? 

Seeing ever more clearly and grasping ever more firmly to the ballasts, anchors and islands that have always been, to what is real, true and lasting?

For me it is the Holy Spirit, 

Wakan Tanka,

L'Esprit-Saint – 

of Love, Compassion, Mercy, and Grace – 

by its ineffable nature transcending time, space and form, 

whom we elevated with singularity of purpose, 

to whom I pray

we continue to elevate, 

in an enlightened journeys forward, 

nourishing and glowing within,

emanating outward, 

and guided from above by the Light of the Holy Spirit,

in our separate canoes, 

in our shared spirit canoe, 

together.