Prayer

photo by jrmakesart.com

I woke this morning with a prayer on my lips…may I be a good conductor. A good conduit of energy from planet to vast expanse, and from beyond to imminent. May I be a good conductor of the past into the present, and the present into the future, and all present time into before and besides. May I be a good conductor of relationship in all forms, a good conductor of language and purpose. May I release force, and allow the conduction of the bigger story to flow as a current through me, and may I respond appropriately. May I be a circuit of the mystery, a bridge for what is bigger than my tiny individual self to move across and pass through. May I remember that I am an instrument and not strive to be the song, and to honor the power that plays its music as me in both resonance and dissonance. May I learn to receive, allow, follow, and respond with actions that are in service to the entire symphony of creation. May I be a good conductor of both memory and hope.

Slowly I am learning how to wake with poems and prayers on my tongue. Remembering how to greet each new day as possibility regardless of the weight that it bears. Slowly I am learning to trust the current that is always flowing through me, as me, for the duration of time that I am exchanging oxygen for carbon dioxide. This rememberance becoming the sparks of faith that ignite my days with wonder, regardless of circumstance.

At this moment, I sit in the morning light, which shines into this room from both North and South, and all I can see through the windows are limbs, branches, and trunks. I hear birdsong, so clear and crisp that it transports me to crystalline moments of my past with details, but unquestionably clear sound. Childhood mornings of dawning day, cool and brisk, bare limbs, dormant grasses and birdsong. The quiet of a camp at the base of a purple mountain, just beyond voices, shouts, and laughter of dozens of children and the tensions and frustrations of grown-ups navigating their illusions. Walking in the dew moist grass in the shadow of old blue hills lost in the harmony of birdsong. Morning winter Southern Appalachian birdsong, rising above the traffic and noise of the world, forgetting for a moment that it was ever different than it has always been. Tiny songbirds, knowing, singing the world into a day. These creatures who haven’t forgotten the how’s and why’s of aliveness. Delicate beings singing the song of our longing back to us, undeterred by our dramas, our wants, our demands of unstoppable progress and destruction.

There is a language of no words, yet it holds the most potent call. The communication that speaks past into present and invites wonder and hope and rememberance into our days. That which conducts the symphony of the mystery into our ears and through our cells. That rattles our bones with its persistence. It’s an invitation that will not allow for articulation, that can only be felt, heard, and sensed. It’s a calling, maybe even a poem.