Prayer

My focus this past year has been on prayer: all the many forms of prayer and what prayer means to me. I found there were a lot of definitions of prayer and about what prayer means as I looked them up in the dictionary. Here are some of the definitions found in the dictionary.

• A reverent petition made to God, or another object of worship.
• The act of making a reverent petition to God, a god, or another object of worship.
• The request of a complainant, as stated in a complaint or in equity, that the court grant the aid or relief solicited.
• An active communion with God, a god, or another object of worship, such as in devotion, confession, praise, or Thanksgiving.

In the past I have struggled with prayer: not only the act of doing it, but the concept of it. What does it mean? What does it really do? Is it a good use of time? What I have discovered in myself is that I have to come to my own understanding of prayer. I could not use the descriptions from the dictionary, nor could I use the old Latin version or any other linguistic version. I had to stand in my center and really look at myself/within myself to discover what the act of prayer meant to me. I realized in doing so that I have a lot of societal information – and none of it is self-sourced. In my discovery process I ran across a book called Praying With Power by José Luis Stevens that describes how to use ancient shamanic techniques to gain maximum spiritual benefit and extraordinary results through prayer. I have continued to resource this book in my self-discovery process as well as continuing to learn from my mentors, teachers and – most importantly – myself.

The thing that became extraordinarily clear to me during my self-discovery process is that I struggled with the words! I struggled with how to properly converse with the Creator/God/Spirit. So I decided that since I had this wonderful book that I would read out of it. I would pick a topic and I would use the prayer within the book to work with, to sit with, to meditate with, to pray with. Here is one thing that I would to share – that I find incredibly moving and endearing. This prayer for me does a great job of summing up in words what I was feeling! And this had been the problem the whole time; that is, I did not know how to put into words what I was feeling.

A Prayer to Meet Spirit Everywhere

Great Spirit, you’re everywhere.
I feel you deep within my heart.
I am inside you and experiencing you
like a flame of life coursing through me.

I need you in this tree,
I see you in this cloud,
I feel you in this breeze,
I smell you in the fragrance of this flower.

You’re everywhere I go,
everywhere I stopped to rest.
I visit you in my sleep and in dreams
I visited with you in friends.

I pet you in this fur,
I eat you in this fruit,
I lie on you in this meadow,
I climb on you on this mountain.

I walk in you in this forest.
You are always with me
and I am always your manifestation:
playing, working, studying, resting.

I send you inside me,
an expanding light intensifying
deep within my meditation. I feel you
deeper into silence: you penetrate my heart.

You filter through my cells and atomic structure.
You are golden light sweeping through me.
You filled me with beauty and vitality.

And I become these gifts you give me,
for I am within you and you are within me.
I feel your blessings everywhere.
I am truly eternally blessed.
--by José Luis Stevens

There is an old Native American expression when someone asks an elder who they are. There response is, “I am the mountains, I am the wind.” This is what I consider being connected to spirit be.

I have discovered a lot of things on this path of searching out my form of prayer; I now know the style of prayer that resonates with me is one of active participation in prayer. It is one of seeking what is in my heart that needs to be communicated and moving from that place without words or the necessity for them. Words for me can limit me because of my head's involvement. This is not to say that I am not communicating with spirit, or that I am not using words; it is that I have learned how to commune, and for me that is by far more enriching. I have learned that active participation, which for me is in the form of fire ceremonies and sand paintings, are transformative! That is, sitting with my personal altar/Mesa and speaking to it through my heart moves mountains. And since I know now what prayer is to me, I would have to say it is most definitely worth the time!