Good day all! Welcome back to a the world of bear…today I would like to take a look at the things that we hold sacred for and during prayer. Wheww whooo can you believe it someone is gonna talk about Prayer! How do we pray, what tools do we use to send our intentions out to the Universe and Creator God to be heard?
Well there are many objects from many cultures. There are talismans, medals, rosaries. Holy water, cards, candles in various colors that would and can invoke different results. There are offerings of food, money, sacrifices of not eating or fast, there is smoke or smudge, sweet grass or palms, there is tobacco and even prayer ties. We are a world filled with diversity and within that we all strive to have our desires, prayers and thoughts heard by a higher power.
Tobacco has been used for generations as offerings to the spirits, for planting, for gathering food, for healings and ceremony. Sacred uses of tobacco may vary tribally yet still the meaning remains, tobacco should be used for prayer, protection, respect and healings. Tobacco is medicine.
Our People have made Prayer Ties by wrapping sacred herbs into bright and colorful cloth while praying to Creator. Then hanging them on the trees so that the Sacred Winds can carry our prayers up to be heard and answered. Once the Prayer Ties are done and the season calls for new ones to be put out, they old ones are then burned in a respectful and reverent ceremony, assuring that the prayers and intent are sent up to the heavens and carried to the Creator within the smoke.
Making Prayer Ties or using other tools to help us pray or honor the Creator is not about precision or doing it right, it is about the intent. They are meant to be sacred objects that contains your desires and prayers. They are to help us to remember the ritual, the honor the respect in prayer. To be thankful, to remember we are human and at times we need the assistance of prayer to help us hold our hopes, our dreams and even our faith to help guide us through our journeys…
Prayer in itself is a Powerful tool…
Prayers…they can me silent. they can be joyous, they can be frantic at times…but no matter what they are, they are spoken from deep within our hearts… asking for guidance, healings or just to be acknowledged. Does prayer have to be in a certain way or spoken in certain words for us to be heard? My answer would be I think not… it doesn’t matter to Creator whether you are a scholar or a person of few words, a child or an adult…whether you speak English or Portugal… and don’t ask I only share what they give me… you can speak in sign language or rap… it doesn’t matter how you pray…what matters is that you have that conversation with the higher self…with the Creator God…
That we extend that thought process and are thankful and humble for what we are given…what we have. Sometimes we may have an abundance like no other…and at any given time we can have that slip away… but through it all we still have prayer and with that comes power, hope…faith… all things that can move mountains when needed or softly cradle us in loving embrace..
Prayer….it is a common denominator… a link to human… like a web it will weave a quilt of strength like no other… How do I know…? I have seen it first hand in action.
I have seen it heal, I have seen it put smiles to faces, I have seen it bring nations together, and I have seen it remind people to be humble and thankful… prayer…It is old…it is sacred… it is Power…
Let us raise our intentions to our consciousness and voice by sending healing energies and prayer up this day… Today I pray for all those who ask, all those in need, all those who do not ask … I pray that we are given the strength, the joy and the love that is needed in our days…
I call to the sacred winds…to carry my words
To the Grandmothers and Grandfathers of the North, the south, the east, the west, Above …below and within…
I call to the sacred winds to carry my words to the Winged ones…the Four Leggeds…the Plant People…the Crystal Keepers, the Thunder Beings, the Angelic Realm…Mother Mary and Magdalene…my Brother Christ and all the nations that love us.
I thank you for all the many blessings that you have shared with us today and beyond and I ask that you hear our prayers whether spoken our held silently within our hearts.
Today I ask that you hear our prayers as we stand humbly before you, small and human.
Help us to remember we are all but a tiny part of a great universe, that we are all connected as one…
Bring us the strength we need to walk our paths without ego or judgment…
Allow our hearts to hear what our ears are missing
Teach us how to allow forgiveness for others and ourselves
Fill our being with the unconditional love that you so freely offer all.
I call that we be reminded we are all no better than or less than one another.
Guide us through our days, to help us with our humanness…that we learn to reconnect with others in a gentle and positive way. Offering smiles when they are needed without thought, shoulders or ears to help ease another…and words that will uplift or soothe.
Keep our children safe and strong in this troubled world… I ask that on this day and days to come…guidance is shared with them to help them as they walk their paths. Help open our eyes so we all can learn and see the right way of things, teach us to respect all life as sacred no matter how small, open our ears and minds so that we may understand things that are being taught to us in good and gentle manners…open our hearts so that when the harshness of the world falls at our feet, we can cope and handle it with compassion and understanding.
I ask that today and all days ahead that prayer begins to weave its magic over the world…that with each prayer another strong thread is added to this great quilt of life… that it is seen with every color from ever tribe of the five fingered race…that it helps us all to strengthen the good that is inside each of us, making us stronger, more loving, more understanding with each other. Prayer that it rings out from every heart and every whisper to be heard out to the Universe and beyond…to Creator God. So that we all will be wrapped in loving embrace and reminded that we are all acknowledged..that we all matter…that we are all heard…
I thank all those who have walked with us and answer our calls…this day and in days to come…and honor you …AHO
So my wish to you all today is that you stop throughout the day and pray…not with big fancy ways…but in acknowledgement…acknowledgement of the day you are having, or the people that made you smile or remind you to slow down and be kinder… to pray that we are human and we learn to accept our flaws that we carry and in that the understanding that within our imperfection we are all perfect…
I wish to you all that the love in my heart finds yours and fills it with hope and faith…faith that in the moments ahead of us we can all help to make this world a little better. Stay well and remember…Pray!
Mitakuye O’yasin
~bear Medicinewalker
Prayers from Within by Jan Michael Looking Wolf available at http://www.lookingwolf.com/
