thanksgiving

[Guest guest]

Prayer for the Great Family

Gratitude to Mother Earth, sailing through night and day—

and to her soil: rich, rare and sweet

in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to Plants, the sun-facing, light-changing leaf

and fine root-hairs; standing still through wind

and rain; their dance is in the flowering spiral grain

in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to Air, bearing the soaring Swift and silent

Owl at dawn. Breath of our song

clear spirit breeze

in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to Wild Beings, our brothers, teaching secrets,

freedoms, and ways; who share with us their milk;

self-complete, brave and aware

in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to Water: clouds, lakes, rivers, glaciers;

holding or releasing; streaming through all

our bodies salty seas

in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to the Sun: blinding pulsing light through

trunks of trees, through mists, warming caves where

bears and snakes sleep— he who wakes us—

in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to the Great Sky

who holds billions of stars— and goes yet beyond that—

beyond all powers, and thoughts

and yet is within us—

Grandfather Space.

The Mind is his Wife.

so be it.

after a Mohawk prayer

Snyder, Turtle Island

New Directions, New York, 1974, pp. 24-25

Invocation

by Robin on(From the Incredible String Band album " U " )

you that create the diversity of the formsopen to my wordsyou that divide and multiply it

hear my soundsI make yield league to youancient associatesand fellow wanderersyou that move the heartin fur and scaleI join with youyou that sing bright and subtlemaking shapes that my throat cannot tell

you that harden the hornand make quick the eyeyou that run the fast fox and the zigzag flyyou sizeless makers of the mole and of the whaleaid me and I will aid youI make a blood pact with youyou that lift the blossom and the green branch

you who make symmetries more trueyou who consider the angle of your limbswho dance in slower timewho watch the patternsyou rough coated who eat waterwho stretch deep and highwith your green blood

my red blood let it be mingledaid me and I will aid youI call upon youyou who are unconfinedwho have no shapewho are not seenbut only in your actionI will call upon youyou who have no depth

but choose directionwho bring what is willedthat you blow love upon the summers of my loved onesthat you blow summers upon those loves of my loveaid me and I will aid youI make a pact with youyou who are the liquidness of the waters

and the spark of the flameI call upon youyou who make fertile the soft earthand guard the growth of the growing thingsI make peace with youyou who are the blueness of the blue skyand the wrath of the storm

I take the cup of deepness with youearthshakersand with you the sharp and the hollow hillsI make reverence to youround wakefulness wecall the earthI make wide eyes to youyou who are awakeevery created thing both solid and sleepy

or airy lightI weave colours round youyou who will come with meI will consider it beauty-- As within, so without~ Alice O. HowellAll joy in the world has come from wishing happiness for others.

All the suffering in the world has come from wanting pleasure for oneself.

~Shantideva (7th. c. CE)A propensity to hope and joy is real riches: one to fear and sorrow, real poverty~e Hume