Prayer for Inclusion
Include me.
Invite me into the circle and guide me to the spot that bears my name
Escort me with a steadying touch, loose your hold and bear me aloft
Include my joy and ebullience, my hope and promise,
The tracks of endless tears and the wounds of struggle and pain
that have marked the past.
Include me raw and refined, defiant, quiescent
Include me enriched and diminished, broken and healed
Embrace me as the one anointed and demeaned,
Privileged and impoverished by stature, circumstance
or the trajectory of an inconstant moon.
Include my willingness.
Reap the fruits of surrender I have cultivated for this moment
Lead me through a doorway unadorned, a hallway lined with latency,
Pass the drinking gourd so that all who thirst,
May sip the undilute nectar of belonging.
Include me as woman, man, brother, sister, parent, child
Include me offering and offered, receiving and giving, creator and creation
Weave the strands of my soul into a blossoming tapestry of voices,
Joined by the shared heart of humanity and a long-aching hunger for unity.
Use every part of me
Include the infinitesimal and the inestimable
Lift me at once to my full height and humility
Draw out my hidden gifts and squandered talents
And draw me into the arms of others who await my arrival.
I am here in this Now,
Filled with passion, with purpose
My prayer but so simple:
Include me.
This prayer is one of two poems I received in the mail from poet Rachel Snyder......
the other is You Are the Prayer.
I am taking a little journey with her and several other ''volunteers''
....there are 30 something of us.
Rachel has a blog I visit often to savor her words.
They always speak to me like they do a zillion others of us.
They always speak to me like they do a zillion others of us.
Rachel doesn't take credit for her magic...she thanks the Muses.
...and she wants to share what comes to her.
So each of us volunteers, and we are all over the world, will keep one of the two poems, and find a place to tuck the other somewhere in our community, or a place we find while traveling, so that someone else can have the gift.
You can read how the Words Divinely Wrought poetry-sharing project was born
at Being Whole Now...
and maybe you'll want to join us in helping the words fly.
We can use all the thoughtful beauty in the world we can get...don't you think?
Things that bring us together..
there are plenty of people at work to keep us separate.
Things that bring us together..
there are plenty of people at work to keep us separate.
xo
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5 comments:
Thank you, Julie, for this lovely post and for helping spread the word about the Words Divinely Wrought global poetry-share.
I love your use of the word "tuck" in terms of placing the poems, so you can now expect to see me use the word as well. (:
One tiny thing: The title of my blog is Be Whole Now (not Being Whole Now) -- although I know it doesn't pose any problem in people finding their way to the site.
I am so thrilled to have you participating in our Divine undertaking. Your energy is so lovely and your site is equally gorgeous.
xoxoxo
It's a lovely poem. I would guess that most of the world's pain is caused by people lashing out at themselves and others because they don't feel included. As for not taking credit but ascribing it to the Muses, I don't get why that is indicative of humility (since SHE was the one the Muses chose), but then maybe humility isn't always desirable, if for no other reason than that it so easily leads to hypocrisy. I very much appreciate you sharing this, because I didn't know about her or her importance in your life, and I'm glad now that I do know.
Hi, Snowbrush,
You've raised a fair question, and it offers me a welcome opportunity to clarify a bit about how I work.
It's not exactly that I don't take credit for what I do. It's that some artists and writers work from the intellect and others are more divinely inspired (like Julie).
My gift is not that I've studied poetry or read loads of books about it or even fully understand the craft -- but that I have cultivated my ability to get out of the way and let creativity move through me. I don't aways write a poem; most often, a poem writes Me.
So, in that respect, I do like to honor something larger than myself, which can be called the Muses or God or Goddess or Creation or the collective unconscious or whatever works for different folks.
Thanks for letting me share my thoughts with you and others. And thank you for enjoying my Prayer for Inclusion.
Dear Julie...Oh I love that you are a part of Rachel's sharing project! :) As am I! This is soooo exciting to be a part of! It will be interesting to see how this plays out, won't it? I love that it is bringing heartbeats together, one person, one mind, one heart, aligned with the next.
This is Great Mystery in Action!
Bless You Sweet Sister for all that you do...
Much Love,
Akasa
"It's that some artists and writers work from the intellect and others are more divinely inspired (like Julie)."
I should think that working with divine inspiration would just beat the heck out of working out of one's own, and woefully limited, intellect. Even if the former option is open to all of us, you still consider yourself as different from most in that you have learned to channel it. This in itself suggests neither arrogance nor humility, although I can see how one might easily become overly confident in one's vision, given that the Muses and their relations are less likely to be in error than the rest of us. All that said, you are on a very different road than I have ever traveled, so I will defer to your opinions about the matter. I simply have no dog in this fight, as they say (I mean this humorously).
"So, in that respect, I do like to honor something larger than myself, which can be called the Muses or God or Goddess or Creation or the collective unconscious or whatever works for different folks."
Well, I'm an atheist, so, let's see, what word would work for me... I can't think of any. I like to think that my writing is good, but I have no belief that it reflects anything beyond my own strengths and limitations.
Thanks so much for writing, Rachel.
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