Growing up the prayers we said were the kind found in prayer books and the Bible. I learned to recite the Lord’s prayer at church and learned that horrible prayer about dying in my sleep from my parents. At the time, I thought that the only way to pray was to get down on your knees and recite words you’d learned from people older and wiser than yourself.
When I grew older, became a pagan, and came back to prayer, I started to realize that I could speak to the God and Goddess like confidants. I could share with them what was going on with my life, thank them for the gifts they’d given me, and ask them for help with anything going on in my life. I started getting into the habit of praying more informally and on a more regular basis. Sometimes it seems as if I’m in constant contact with my guides and through them the Lord and Lady and having that connection truly helps me be more centered and more graceful.
However, when my world got torn apart, those relationships with the God and Goddess seemed torn asunder and it seemed as if I couldn’t function enough to even pray. My prayers sounded whiny and horrible even to me as I prayed for revenge, I prayed for the pain to end, and I prayed for help. I cried and I sobbed, but never once did I pray for peace, which is what I needed most of all. So in the absence of my ability to pray, I turned to my journal and I wrote my heart out. I wrote out all the nasty stuff, I wrote out all my pain, I wrote out my need for revenge, I wrote it all on the page and I realized as I was writing that getting it out on the page was cathartic and was giving me some measure of peace.
Being the intellectual creature that I am, I started researching prayer and trying to figure out why my prayers hadn’t been working when journaling seemed to be. Through the course of my research, I found that those journal posts were the answer to my prayers after all because even though I hadn’t asked for peace, the Old Ones had known what I needed and had given me a way to find peace by dumping all of my anger and pain onto the page.
As I realized the power that writing had, I wondered what would happen if I started writing out my prayers. I actually found a book of Christian prayers and a book of Pagan meditations to see what the structure was and from there I started writing my own prayers. Sometimes I wrote prayers that I repeat time and time again and I find there is a beauty and wonder in saying the same sacred words time and time again. Other times I write prayers for a specific reason and I find that committing them to the page and then reciting them seems to give them a resonance that speaking them aloud doesn’t.
The prayers I write in my book are usually prayers of thanksgiving and praise and follow a format similar to the one below with a salutation, thanks for my blessings, a request for guidance, and a thank you. The following is a sample of a prayer I wrote recently.
Dearest Lord and Lady,
As the days are growing shorter and the first harvest grows near,
I’d like to thank you for all that you have given me.
Thank you for my beautiful children who fill my life with love and joy.
Thank you for my dog who loves me unconditionally and reminds me that I am loved even at my most unlovable.
Thank you for my friends who have opened their hearts to me.
Thank you for a job that I enjoy and that pays me well.
As we enter the season of harvest, help me to let go of those things that no longer serve me
Help me to replace worry and anxiety with faith and trust
Help me to remember to have patience and compassion for people struggling in their lives
Help me to remember to live lightly on this earth
And help me to remember to live a life of grace and beauty.
Blessed be
I have a special book that was a gift from a friend that I write my prayers in and although I don’t write in it every day, I find that the book holds special power and reading through my prayers from days past helps me to remember their power and to remember to live a life connected to spirit.
Cairn by Cairn 