Peace Prayers

[Guest guest]

As I go into the Earth, she pierces my heart. As I

penetrate further, she unveils me. When I have reached

her center, I am weeping openly.

 

I have known her all my life, yet she reveals stories

to me, and these stories are revelations and I am

transformed.

 

Each time I go to her I am born like this. Her renewal

washes over me endlessly, her wounds caress me; I

become aware of all that has come

between us, of the noise between us, the blindness, of

something sleeping between us.

 

Now my body reaches out to her. They speak

effortlessly, and I learn at no instant does she fail

me in her presence. She is as delicate as I am; I know

her sentience; I feel her pain and my own pain comes

into me, and my own pain grows large and I grasp this

pain with my hands, and I open my mouth to this pain,

I taste, I know, and I know why she goes on, under

great weight, with this great thirst, in drought, in

starvation, with intelligence in every act doe she

survive disaster.

 

This earth is my sister; I love her daily grace, her

silent daring, and how loved I am, how we admire this

strength in each other, all that we have lost, and all

 

that we have suffered, all that we know: we are

stunned by this beauty, and I do not forget what she

is to me, what I am to her.

 

~~~Susan Griffin

Page 380 (Meditations) Earth Prayers From Around the

World, 365 Prayers, Poems, and Invocations For

Honoring the Earth. Roberts and Amidon, Harper Collins

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The Sacred Berry

 

(Hold a ripe strawberry, green stem intact.)

Oh sweet gift to the Seneca, I admire you.

You are shaped like the heart

to remind us that we are to live by the heart.

 

Your flesh is red, to tell us our hearts should be

moist with blood,

never dry and brown and crackly.

 

We study the seeds on the outside. They are many, to

teach us that

there are many ways in the world to believe, to

understand life.

All are worthy of respect.

 

We finger the leaves, so we keep in mind that

we must always stay connected to Mother Earth and

appreciate her gifts.

 

Now, we eat this beautiful strawberry from the bottom

up (in silence), relishing the sweet taste. For the

last bite, we eat berry and leaf together

to help us remember life holds bitter tastes with

sweet. For all, we keep a thankful heart.

 

~~~ Seneca oral tradition, Native American,

recorded by José Hobday

WomanPrayers: Prayers by Women from Throughout History

and Around the world.

Page 69-70, Mary Ford-Grabowsky (Finding Heaven in

Mother Earth), Harper San Francisco