Learning to Pray

As I begin my ‘Word’ State of Mind Map, logic tells me to start at the centre and to follow the way it was drawn. For some reason though, ‘prayer’ keeps pushing itself forward as the first contender. Going to and fro, from the centre to the side, considering the technicalities of how the words and fabric will connect, I realise that prayer is calling, quite definitely.
So who am I to argue? To work from intuition is to learn to listen to that inner voice and to recognise prompts from other sources.

As a child I recited prayers in English, ‘Our Father, who art in …’ in Welsh ‘O dad yn deuly dedwith…’. School was the one and only place I encountered religion. I didn’t consider prayer to be anything special, it was a bundle of words, like a poem or like reciting the times table.

As an adult though, being outside a religious system, the ritual around prayer and worship has held a fascination, being mysterious, appealing. But it what was something other people did. So that day, in the kundalini yoga class, it was the sweetest revelation, to find myself in prayer ! where the session began with ‘Om namo, guru dev namo’, with singing sprinkled between the poses, then a prayer to close.

Another beautiful introduction to prayer is in ‘The Lotus and The Lily’ by Janet Connor. She leads a process for you to create your own offering. It took quite some time to form my first prayer, it seemed so taboo, even in a world where most probably, the majority of people are praying to one god or another.

I was sorting through my postcard collection, when I came across this card of Shiva, Parvati and Ganesha, three Hindu deities. Lord Ganesha is the remover of obstacles, to whom the Hindus pray at the start of a project. It is encouraging to me, that there is a concept acknowledging the struggles that occur in creativity which can be addressed by prayer and ritual. Here is a recording of a Temple Priest singing to Ganesha. I can’t decipher or understand the words, and I quite like that, just to listen to the voice as an instrument.

Hand stitching is a meditative experience. I pray regularly as well, before yoga and then afterwards with my own fashioned prayer. So it makes sense that ‘prayer’ is the opening word to be stitched, to start the work as it is to go on.

Thank you for visiting and I hope you have a prayerful day.