Sunday Prayer

A Personal Prayer Offered To My Higher Power

Sharing my heart during these dark times seems like the right thing to do. Be gentle dear ones.

Dear Goddess,

Please be with me today. Help me to just be, to live in each breath and to feel each moment.

Help me to focus with gratitude on what shows up for me today and keep me from wanting what is not available. Help me to embrace the truth and to rid myself of wishful or deceitful thinking.

Be with me as I keep my heart open, even when it wants to close. Help me to receive all of the goodness and love that is available to me today.

Help me to accept any hurts or violations of boundary and let my hurt tell me what needs to be done.

Help me to know my truth and not to allow anyone to talk me out of it with slick words or masked intentions.

Help me to inhabit my body as a fully awake woman who is able to handle and process any sensations that arise because I am the decider of my actions. My feelings and my body do not control me, they just inform me.

Be with me when old habits call like an old, comfy sweater to lure me away from new habits and adventures. There will be other sources of comfort on this journey and the old ones won’t fit anymore. Help me to have patience and calm while the way is made clear and new comforts are prepared.

Help me to never feel shame for the love I have in my heart that bubbles up and bursts out of me and onto others. It is not too much, it is not meant to be kept inside. It is a gift, not a weakness to love and to share it is brave. Holding it in is what scared people do. I don’t have to be scared and sharing my heart with safe people is the most important thing I can do right now.

Be with me as I tackle responsibilities that make me doubt my strength and abilities. Never, ever have I failed to survived anything that has tested me. Please have my back and remind me when I forget, that I am a badass.

Lastly, please look after the hearts of those I love. My people keep me sane, strong, and humble. I need them and I want them safe and loved. Let us all be an example of living with in open heart, a humble heart, full of love even when the world tells us to close it, to protect it and to fear.

Help me to embody a fully alive, brave, strong, empathetic, and love filled woman today. Help me to play, rest, work, create, and to love my people and myself well.

Amen

I Love The Mountains

Every time I go there I feel closer to something bigger. 

I don't live in or near the mountains. In fact, I live in a valley, surrounded by flatland as far as the eye can see. It is beautiful with trees and flowers and water, etc. It is home and familiar. But when I go to the mountains, I feel something different. I think the word is awe. 

The very first time I went to the mountains was when I was in high school. I think I was on the verge of turning 14 or 15 and I went on a road trip out west with my friend and her family. We saw the Rocky Mountains, the Tetons, and Yellowstone. Before that we saw Mt. Rushmore. I could not believe my eyes. I felt like it was some sort of magic in the mountains. I felt awe. My very favorite spot was Artist's Point where the mountains are different colors like an artist painted them. I didn't have the words for the beauty I saw. I tried to capture it with my cheap film camera, but the pictures do not do it justice. 

The hiking, the forest, the waterfalls, the wildlife, the danger and beauty of the mountains was so exciting. I could not wait to go back someday. And while I haven't made it back out west, I have seen many mountains in my life since then. The Smokey Mountains, Mt. Vesuvius, the cliffs of Amalfi, Italy, Malibu, St. Lucia, Jamaica, I just feel called to them. When I am in them I feel myself connected to something bigger than me. I call that Spirit or Higher Power, or Goddess, etc. Whatever I call it, I experience it in the mountains. The views too pretty to think we could have thought of them. The waterfalls to wild to come from us. The trees too stubborn to follow our rules, growing out of sheer rock and standing straight against all odds. 

When I'm standing on the top of the world and I can see three states away, I feel small and humble, yet also powerful and inspired. Sometimes I wonder why I don't just go live in the mountains because I would love to feel that more often in my life. Maybe some day I will. But I also feel that way standing ankle deep in Lake Superior, or the ocean, or even a stream. I feel that way watching the birds and chipmunks out my kitchen window but it is less dramatic. 

The drama and intensity of driving in a car along the edge of a mountain face, or hiking on a small trail so close to the edge of the Earth with nothing to see but vastness, makes it impossible to ignore your limits and God's lack of them. My carsickness reminds me that I'm human and my body is limiting. The feeling I get watching the sun rise and set over those giant, vast, mountains reminds me that something out there created that and I don't have to understand it, tame it, conquer it or own it, I can just enjoy it while I can. 

I'm sitting back in Michigan today. It is flat, it is snowing, and it is cold. I'm struggling to remember that the same awe I felt in the mountains in available to me here. I feel a little lost without the big, beautiful things, the sunshine, and the fresh mountain air. But I'm going to keep looking. Maybe in the giant snowflakes falling outside my window. The cardinal in my cedar trees. The chickadee at my feeder. The fact that I wake up every day and that I'm able to do good things. All more proof that there is something bigger than me out there. Creating mountains, allowing me to get two six year olds back to school after a long break without losing my cool, even though we couldn't find folders, glasses, or computers, and reminding me to get back to writing because it brings me joy. 

I hope you find your mountain moment today. The one that makes you stop for just a moment today and realize that you are not all alone here and that there is so much to wonder at, to be in awe of. I'm trying my best today, it is not easy but I'm looking anyway.