equinox

Equinox. Changing daylight, changing seasons, cycles of the moon and movements of the sun. A moment to stand still, gather my intentions and send up prayers.

I pray to be open to what life tosses me today – a sick friend on the other end of the line, a neighbor in crisis, a nameless worry that nips at my heels like a young coyote. I practice again and again breathing out the fear and breathing in the capacity to stand and say yes, I’m here, I’m willing. 

I pray that when I set foot on the earth I give praise – to my foot, to the earth holding my foot, to the sky who says open yourself to this day as I am open, wide, accepting.

I pray for my younger self who went hungry for love, starving for comfort. I tuck her close by my side, under a wide green cloak as I go about my day, letting the murmuring wound she carries inform me, soften me to the pain of others.

I pray for the earth and all that is vanishing. May I care with exquisite tenderness the garden that has been given me to tend. May I remember that we are all yearning for the right soil to flourish in, strong enough to send up shoots and release the sweet scent of our true being into bloom.

I pray that the benefit from the food I eat be shared with all who hunger, and despite a small voice that says what good does that do? I persist.

I pray for forgiveness from others for the times I withheld my love from a sense of lack; I pray for forgiveness from myself for the times I hung back in the shadows for fear of shining.

I pray to continue practicing patience, to think before I speak, to speak from a place of kindness.

I pray for the willingness to stay open to the suffering of others – to our children who are the victims of gun violence, and to the ceaseless wail of their parents.

I pray for the stability to live in a constant state of uncertainty and change. For the courage to bear the cruelty and environmental collapse that lodge themselves in my throat like a small fish bone, impossible to ignore.

I pray that as the light wanes, we find the place of rest and peace where we might renew ourselves in the hours of darkness and deeply felt endings.

I pray that our most profound political act turns out to be love.

And always I pray to my ancestors who bore a grief they are asking me to heal. And they show me luminous connections between people. A small band of gypsies feeding each other from what’s left after the storm. Desert wanderers sharing water. Fisherman gathering the hungry. Stones along the pathway until there is a radiant grid, which is what our ancestors have been trying to tell us all along. Love each other. Care for each other. It’s how we survived. It’s how you will too.

Start small. Start at home. Move out from there. Do what you can and it will be enough. It is always enough. Don’t let fear stop you. There’s no other way, no other pathway home.

Persist because love is the path and the torch and the only key to the chest worth opening. And here is the blessing. You are holding the key.

I pray for a download of mercy for us all. May we banish all doubt that we are gifted, that what we say and do matters, that we are loved by Spirit beyond our understanding, and that it is safe, it is time, to share our love with a full heart, a sorrowing and joyful heart, a heart that asks to be of service to a broken world.