When I hear of colleagues and friends who are having a stressful time, I usually exit my often self-defeating stream of thoughts and clear my mind – so my well-wishes can broadcast clearly. What works for me is tuning into thankfulness and often a little prayer or song comes to mind.
An image transformed during a rare attempt to be adventurous with photoshop.
Who or what are my little prayers addressed to? The One in me I’m not ready to manifest and therefore bow to.
Below is a German song that came to me just now.
The text misses two dots above the ‘o’ in the word ‘schonen.’ I’d be grateful if someone could point me to a source for dots.
Dank Dir fur jeden schonen Morgen
Dank Dir fur jeden neuen Tag
Dank Dir dass ich all meine Sorgen
Auf Dich legen mag.
Very freely translated: Thank you, for every lovely morning, thank you for every novel day. Thank you, that I may leave my sorrows in your wisdom’s way.
Some time ago I shared my favourite prayer, also a song, with words by Hazrat Inayat Khan: …https://courseofmirrors.wordpress.com/2011/05/08/my-favourite-prayer/
Course of Mirrors 
yes that poem/prayer is really quite lovely. Gentle thoughts and kind selfless wishes – they can only do good surely
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The least it can do is preventing messy transmissions 🙂
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Lovely. May I share one of my favourite prayers? http://www.appleseeds.org/canticle.htm
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Another beautiful song, thanks. I recall this most striking St Francis quote:
‘What we are looking for is what is looking.’
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Soothing thoughts of kindness. In a very simple way, the old sayings of my grandmother come to mind. “Life is too short to spend it being unkind, so, if you can’t say something nice, say nothing at all.” Ridiculously simple, but there is a clarity of thought there and a plain truth. Life is hard and sweet, full of stress, and sorrow and happiness. Don’t waste it in cruel endeavours. Be kind, be thoughtful, be thankful. I’m not at all religious, but I am a spiritual soul and I truly believe in the power of goodness and kindness and if you find yourself in a moment of rage or anger or gripped by a desire to be brutally honest at the expense of someone else. Stop, think. Who are you benefitting? Why be cruel when you can be kind. So, lend a helping hand to the human next to you, you do not know their pains and struggles. Be kind and reflect on those moments that can make all the difference to someone. Again, if you can’t say something nice, say nothing at all.
One book I would HIGHLY recommend, is Maya Angelou’s lesser known work, ‘Wouldn’t Take Nothing For My Journey Now’ http://www.amazon.co.uk/Wouldnt-Take-Nothing-For-Journey/dp/1860491405/ref=sr_1_16?ie=UTF8&qid=1362188764&sr=8-16
…an absolute MUST read. Full of simple truths that enlighten and teach and guide. Again, a wonderfully simple turn of phrase that she uses for times of high stress and anxiety which we often find ourselves in, is this. (forgive me if I haven’t quoted this verbatim) “If you find yourself in a situation that you are not happy with, change it. If you find you cannot change it, then change the way you think about it.” Simple, elegant. Truths for living. 😀 xx
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Thanks for your contribution, Sophie. I admire Maya Angelou, she is a fabulous light-warrior. And your grandmother seems wise. My mother grew up with a wise grandmother. However, wise advice is relative to circumstances, and in instances counter effective. My mother had a very kind nature but never learned to deal with conflict and developed a habit of taking blame. Aspects of her appear in my novel.
Being intricately enmeshed, we not only live in each other’s light, but also in each other’s shadow. On the surface, things are hardly ever what they seem. Take a vital human emotion – aggression (you and I are products of the most aggressive sperm.) If a child is prevented from expressing healthy frustration it won’t learn how to deal with this powerful energy and instead express its pent-up frustration inappropriately. Think of a house badly wired, without fuses that trip during power surges. Anger can also be turned inward and become unconsciously self-destructive in subtle ways. Each of us stores memories of having had aspects of us ignored or rejected. If stirred, such residues easily pull us into negativity.
Trapped energy has to go some place. The first law of thermodynamics – energy can be neither created nor destroyed – also applies to the psyche. It’s been part of my life’s work to support people in becoming less defended and more tolerant of our vulnerable and flawed human personalities, and more authentic, to first of all acknowledge negative feelings, and then explore creative and symbolic ways to unravel and deal with otherwise self-defeating emotions. Artists and writers are advantaged in that way. 🙂
There are many styles of de-cluttering inner space, when it works, we can tune into wisdom, like Mary Angelou’s, ‘If you find you cannot change it then change the way you think about it.’ Simple and elegant, I agree. This tiny switch of attitude can transform a life.
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Is this an example of synchronicity, our thinking of prayer simultaneously? Here’s yet another thank you poem, but I suppose we can’t have too many: http://www.harvardsquarelibrary.org/prayers_of_power/e.-e.-cummings.php PS: “The Badly Wired House” – I’m seeing a short story there…
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These Cummings lines roll from the tongue …
the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky
Loved your synchronistic post … like I said …
For myself only know that thoughts are like a shell for something it contains, maybe a feelings, or a deep intention, and when such feeling or intention is embedded in words it has a different sound, not quite sure how to describe it, more embodied maybe.
For anyone interested in exploring this theme I add the link to your post:
http://joelinker.wordpress.com/2013/03/02/on-prayer-and-poetry/#comment-2020
The Badly Wired House. We could both write a story. Might be a while though. I feel like R Heinlein’s stranger in a strange land at the moment. I hope to recover when the sun comes out. It’s been months of cold and grey here in the UK.
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The image of the shell is a good one. Maybe the word is a shell we must hold to our ear. Suggest vitamin D supplements for the lack of sun – seriously. Images of the hearth, too. Pray for sun!
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Liked your praying hands…surreal, beautiful, evocative ! In my experience each human being has their own ways of praying. And prayer, like meditation, evolves through our lifetime journey. For example, for me cooking is praying. When I cook I put my ego aside & cook with awareness. People say that this cooking is delicious.
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Thanks Kamran. Delicious cooking – I recall you’re famous for it. You write
… When I cook I put my ego aside & cook with awareness … this made me smile. I had the surreal image of the ego inside the pot and thought it might equally work – making it tender. There’s another story. 🙂
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