Common Ground Prayer Blog
Share your prayers, inspirations and visions for Common Ground on our brand new Plog. Join us in this exciting experiment in community prayer to inform and inspire Common Ground’s next phase of growth. The Plog is a place to communicate how Spirit is expressing through and as you, and to get in touch with other expressions of our collective wisdom.
Before plogging, take a moment to anchor in Spirit in whatever way works for you, then plog away following the simple instructions below. (You may post anonymously, if you prefer.) Please share your daily (or occasional) prayers, gratitudes and visualizations for Common Ground with the community as a celebration of our collective heart and soul. What a treasure!
From Sightings by Sam Keen.
Not long ago, I was surprised to discover that I hear very little. The problem is not with my ears. Although I have lost acuity in distinguishing some consonants in the human voice. I still have the ability to hear the faintest call of a distant coyote on a moonlit night. The fault lies not in my hearing, but in my listening.
Then I met Bernie Krause, a dedicated listener and one-time member of the folk group The Weavers, who changed his profession from playing music to listening to and recording wild soundscapes throughout the world. In his quest for biophonies-creature symphonies, soundscapes of specific habitats or biomes-he has traveled from the Amazon to Zimbabwe, recording everything from jaguars to baboons, from ants singing to the music of the rain forest.
One morning before sunrise, Bernie and I made our way to a remote valley near my home in Sonoma, California, that was well insulated from human noise. Dawn is typically the best time to listen to the birds because there is little wind and sound carries well. Bernie set up his recording equipment, and then we took a seat and waited for the concert to begin.
When we turned off the equipment and listened through stereophonic earphones to the recording we had made, I was drawn into a pychedelic soundscape richer than any I had experienced. I was surprised to hear the songs of many birds I neither recognized nor had consciously heard with my naked ears. Additionally, in the distance, I heard the familiar gobble of Wild Turkeys and the soft whirl of hummingbird wings, neither of which I had noticed. But what was most amazing was that the recording revealed not a chaotic connection of random songs and sounds, but a soundscape in which each creature had its unique aural niche. Bernie explained that insects, birds, mammals, and amphibians in healthy habitats occupy sonic niches that allow each creature to express its voice without competition from others. Listening carefully, I could hear the various singers and players respond to one another like members of a New Orleans jazz band.
At the end of the call we all shared sounds we cherish. The laughter of children, footsteps, the ocean, breezes in leaves, breath, silence, laughter, children at play, heartbeat, birdsongs, kittens, rain on the roof. Others I thought of through the day were tires on wet pavement, walking through autumn leaves, singing, church bells, YoYoMa and his cello, clocks chiming, a flute, drumming, chanting, on and on. Not only hearing, but listening.
Believe in the unknown
For it is there that we can find the missing
The pieces of our childhood left behind
The toys we forgot how to play with
Believe in your inner child
Lift yourself up and be five again
The feeling of love that is expressed is sometimes misused by the distressed
They take it all in and can’t give it back for it is just the simplicity that they lack.
The simplicity to breathe when times are rough
The simplicity to take in nature’s beauty in all spaces.
How often do we miss the morning glory in the sidewalk.
That sidewalk that takes us to work also takes us away from what we trying to be…unless we stop to see.
See the flower that survives in the pavement, for it is your heart beating ever stong in this world.
From Tuesday, June 24’s Prayer Call:
“LOVE AFTER LOVE” BY DEREK WALCOTT
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
(FROM MARGOT ZAHER & JAFREE OZWALD)
Celebrate the diversity and richness of who you are. Dive deep into the experience of loving everything about YOU for no particular reason at all. You are a unique expression of the Divine. Just let yourself go wild with celebrating this eternal being that you already are! You could spontaneously start with dancing, singing, expressing gratitude for just being alive. Look at all of the creativity inside you, and the many blessings the Universe has given you. You are a super powerful manifestor and you can manifest anything your heart desires! Celebrating who you are will help you realize the immense truth of your true power. Yes, you are so amazingly perfect, just accept it and see what it feels like. The more often you can rejoice in who you are, the more amazing experiences you’ll attract into your life to celebrate.
Now your ego/mind may ask, “Why should I celebrate little old me? What have I done or experienced that’s worth celebrating?” Well, lets just say that whatever you think that is NOT worth celebrating about you, is simply a negative projection from your mind and isn’t real. The fact is that Universe has given you this awesome vehicle right now where you can experience the unique gift of pure conscious awareness. This awareness inside you is actually quite amazing, in fact it can fill the entire Universe! So all of these so called “issues” and personality defects you think you have, are nothing more than reflections of a misguided mind. Each problem you have is a result of a misunderstanding of who you truly are.
Mankind has conquered the outer world, yet it his inner world and consciousness within that has not yet been fully understood and mastered. The fact is that we are both human and Divine, and if we weren’t both this would be one pretty boring world. We each are so absolutely perfect exactly the way we are in this sacred balance. Just like every blade of grass, tree and rosebush is perfect as it is. The blades of grass rosebuds don’t negate themselves, compare and judge their differences? Can you imagine if they did? They cannot judge, they are simply love itself. This is your task as well. Become a wellspring of love for the unique consciousness within you.
All the diversity of this planet is what makes planet Earth such a breathtaking place to inhabit. Each human being’s uniqueness adds the brilliant color and richness to this planet that we so dearly cherish and love. Your so called “flaws” as you see them are simply unique energy fields that are like imprints from the world giving you dimension and personality. You enrich the world just because you exist, and not because of what you do. This world needs you to be EXACTLY the way you are, or else everyone else wouldn’t be the Divinely perfect way that they are.
On the day I am I stare
Wonering what we are in this life
Rushing around to please the un-pleasable
Staring I realize the best way to care
To care for it all often I fall
Then the wind reminds me I take on to much
I rush to much
We are not supposed to make the wind by our rushing
We are supposed to stand still in its presense and be soothed by its energy
from the Tao Te Ching
What we are seeking
can’t be seen, heard, or touched.
It is our essential unity
beyond the divisions of our senses.
It is not obvious to the mind,
but neither is it hidden from the heart.
Looking at nothing,
all of a sudden there it is!
But the moment we see it, it disappears,
leaving only a vague memory.
Chasing after it is useless
because it didn’t begin anytime
and isn’t going anywhere.
To realize our true nature,
we need only return to our breath,
here and now.
Wednesday, June 18,2008
From the book, Wherever You Go There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn
“Cleaning the Stove While Listening to Bobby McFerrin”
I can lose myself and find myself simultaneously while cleaning the kitchen stove. This is a great, if rare occasion for mindfulness practice. Because I don’t do it regularly, it is quite a challenge by the time I get around to it, and there are lots of levels of clean to aim for. I play with getting the stove to look as if it were brand new by the time I’m finished.
Sometimes music adds to the experience. Other times, I prefer silence for my work. One Saturday morning, a tape by Bobby McFerrin was playing when the occasion arose to clean the stove. So cleaning became dancing, the incantations, sounds, rhythms and the movements of my body merging, blending together, sounds unfolding with motion, sensations in my arm aplenty, modulatins in finger pressure on the scrubber as required, caked remains of former cookings slowly changing form and disappearing, all rising and falling in awareness with the music. One big dance of presence, a celebration of now. And, at the end, a clean stove. The voice inside that ordinarily claims credit for such things (”See how clean I got the stove”), and seeks approval for it (”Didn’t I do a good job?”) stirs, but is quickly held in a larger understanding of what had transpired.
Mindfully speaking, I can’t get away with claiming that “I” cleaned the stove. It’s more like the stove cleaned itself, with the help of Bobby McFerrin, the scrubber, the baking soda, and the sponge, with guest appearances by hot water and a string of present moments.
Wondered away I have today
Calling out I reach up to touch God’s hand
Reaching I find many of here waiting
Waiting for the vision to appear
Seen I have the Lion and the Lamb
Knowing that energy is at hand
Powerful shaking I take my gift with care
With all of you Jah’s blessing I share
Opening the heavens
The eye of the beholder saves me
Ravaged from th days pain I cry our
Where have you gone Angel of the sun
Love guides me home to remember that all is well
Sweet voices of youth bring me back and ease the mind of torment
Where have you gone Angel of the sun
A flicker in my heart rememebers her song
Sweet Angel come back to me
Take me hand guide my ears to see what you see for I now my are useless
I wait for your call
I wait for you to shine down your love
Simplicity in thoughts
I call on the Creator today with a wish
A wish for my father
Bring him healing in his time of need
Hold him in your heart
Pause
Breathe
Breathe
Send our that vision fo healing
To all