11/04/07
Great Spirit, Divine One, Creator
who is heaven earth rock wind insect tree fox
human of every size shape color
Holy are your infinite names chanted sung whispered
shouted in every language, tongue.
We will midwife the rebirth of Gaia
as best we can
restoring the Great Law of Peace.
Guide our hands to the soil and seed
honoring the alchemy of food.
Let us remember your abundance
and share the bread of life with any who hunger.
We are for giving
and giving and giving.
We trust in the give-away.
We give and receive.
Let us be humble before the darkness and the light
walking in harmony amidst them.
Give us courage to know them intimately
both within and without.
For you have breathed it all---
the behind, the above, the below, the beyond.
Your awesome power courses in our veins
and animates our hearts.
You are the Great Drum.
We thank you.
translation of the lord's prayer
from King James to Gaian - claudia l'amoreaux
Amen.
Jesus said: Blessed is one who existed
before coming into being.
-- Gospel of Thomas
Imagine a vast ocean with a single wooden yoke floating on the surface. Deep on the bottom of this ocean lies a single blind tortoise. Once every 100 years she swims to the surface for a gulp of air. Buddha compared the chance of achieving a precious human birth to the chance that tortoise will poke her head through that yoke when she comes up for air. For a more contemporary analogy imagine a pea is dropped from an airplane and lands on the head of a pin held by you.
First, what does precious mean? The word for precious in Sanskrit is ratna. In Tibetan sometimes ratna is translated as konchog and sometimes as rinpoche. Other times it is translated as norbu, which means jewel.
A human birth alone does not ensure that it be a “precious” one. There are 18 conditions called the “opportunities and endowments” that enumerate the circumstances required for a precious human birth. They include having sufficient leisure time, freedom, intelligence, ability to practice the dharma, being born in a time and a place where the teachings are available to you, having faith, a good heart and loving nature, and a spiritual guide to help you.
Think of it!
One of the major foundations of Buddhist thought, impermanence remind us that these blessed circumstances might not last.
Our friend George Breed remind us:
Rather than knowing that we are rich beyond measure
as children of the Light, offspringings of the Source,
taoings of the Tao, daughters and sons of God,
we often settle into being a humanoid,
struggling through the days and nights
with doubt and fear and worry.
Rather than owning the blessings of our birth right,
we follow the illusion of a separate existence,
as alienated isolated blobs of protoplasm
in a cruel and murderous world
relieved only by our desires, our hostility,
and our attempts at stupor.
When we know, truly know,
that we are children of the Living Source,
that the One who births us cares for us and loves us,
we move with great happiness through the world.
As re-presentations of the Divine,
as manifestations of the Source,
we existed before coming into being.
Our roots are deep. We are blessed.
"I do only want to advise you to keep growing quietly and seriously
throughout your whole development; you cannot disturb it more rudely
than by looking outward and expecting from outside replies to questions
that only your inmost feeling in your most hushed hour can perhaps
answer."
-- Rainer Maria Rilke
Vespers - A. A. Milne
Little Boy kneels at the foot of the bed,
Droops on the little hands little gold head.
Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares!
Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.
God bless Mummy. I know that's right.
Wasn't it fun in the bath tonight?
The cold's so cold, and the hot's so hot.
Oh! God bless Daddy - I quite forgot.
If I open my fingers a little bit more,
I can see Nanny's dressing gown on the door.
It's a beautiful blue, but it hasn't a hood.
Oh! God bless Nanny and make her good.
Mine has a hood and if I lie in bed,
And put the hood right over my head,
And I shut my eyes, and I curl up small,
And nobody knows that I'm there at all.
Oh! Thank you God, for a lovely day.
And what was the other I had to say?
I said "Bless Daddy," so what can it be?
Oh! Now I remember. God bless Me.
Little boy kneels at the foot of the bed,
Droops on the little hands little gold head,
Hush! Hush! Whisper who dares!
Christopher Robin is saying his prayers.
Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.
Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.
attributed to- Sir Francis Drake -1577
I know a cure for sadness:
Let your hands touch something
that makes you smile.
I bet there are a hundred objects close by
that can do that.
Look at
beauty’s gift to us –
her power is so great she enlivens
the earth, the sky, our
soul.
MiraBai 16th century Hindu Mystic
We are the ocean -- vast, deep, powerful and rich. Nourishing and
nurturing. Dive down into the dark stillness of being. Sense the rising
and falling of surface thoughts and emotions, sometimes gentle,
sometimes violent. Always shifting. Always in motion. Draw back and
watch the waves of your life at play. Know you are the unfathomable
depths -- surface agitations can't disturb you. Know that you are bigger
than the little things that aggravate you.
"The bird of paradise alights only on the hand that does not grasp."
-- John Berry
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