all along

moving through
these vibrations
these frequencies
while cleansing intentions
so the transformations
intensify
opening up portals
to new dimensions
while weaving intentions
for healing
for coming to terms
with being alive
being in a vessel
being mysteriously
conscious for now
listening to spirit
and translating
it all into everyday speech
and dance and song
and knowing all along
that this path never comes easy
that its not always sunny and breezy
but the rain is
a tangible gift
we cannot take for granted
that water IS life
that the breath work
leads to death
of the strife
and birth of sparkling new moments
that the breath
of this life
is an echo
of otherworldly blessing
until now I was
just guessing
taking my time
inventing a rhyme
and channeling
all along.

reflections from 2013

pressed against the wall of her own silence
she begins to rebuild
inside herself
reconstruct
from the ground up
all that happened until this point
taught her strength

now focusing that
will power
to bring desired results

and in essence we are full of contradictions
teaching us we have complexities
that emerge even when we worked
diligently to simplify

and the medicine of the silence
helps her rebuild
reconstruct
from the ground up

wanted to say this

the beauty of possibilities
the habitual knowledge practice
of deep gratitude
the essence of this message
like water, like perfume
capturing truth and winds of change

I want to tell him
I am not fragile in any way
but I am vulnerable
please make that distinction

you win

because you are my  muse
I will follow you
into the next moment
with a heart felt smile
ask you to stay awhile
because you are my muse
I will let you confuse
my reasons for showing up
until I laugh it off quietly
admitting defeat
because you are my muse
you win
and I surrender the prize
the look in my eyes
because you are my muse
I move gently around
the possibilities we have outstretched
before us
because you are my muse
I am outstretched before you

identity -- 1 and 2

two movements. 

1.
she speaks as if she doesn't know she is beautiful. she moves as if she doesn't know she's light. she hurts like she doesn't know she's god. she laughs because she knows she's alright. (2018)

2.

I am the laughing Buddha because I know the big medicine of laughter. I am the cosmic Christ, because I love my enemies and I know the oneness is true. I am Shekinah, feminine life force, and all is born from my woman form. I am laughing shaking a fullness of empty from within a night sky darkness.
my heart is vulnerable and open so I like to pretend it is not. the wound is forever healing but I know the big medicine of laughter (2002)

"Lived in the South, but fought for the North"

This is for my ancestors. Not all of them, because I am assuming there are people in my line who I would rather not address, who would fade into obscurity and that would be fine. We all have some of those I am sure. Ancestors were people, so many characters, so many right and wrong actions taken, so many truths and complexities. This is for my ancestors. They say the veil between the worlds gets thinner this time of year. I have no idea if it does, but just in case, I want to honor those in my line who did way more good than bad, who were kind, compassionate, caring, thoughtful, and bold! I want to honor the ones on my mothers side, who I titled this piece for, they lived in the South but fought for the North in times when whites could so easily accept the violently racist status quo. And I will keep their memory alive, because when people do what is right when most others around them are doing wrong, this is what we uphold, the actions of the ones who choose to honor the lives of the oppressed, who seek to lift them up. I want to honor the ones on my father's side. The Irish, the Eastern European, the ones who came to Ellis Island and found some kind of existence away from their familiar mother lands. I honor those in my line who carried more love in their hearts than bitterness or malice. And I say all this tonight knowing we are dealing with many of the same kinds of pain and injustice our ancestors knew very well. It is up to us now, up to the living to make this world better with our actions, not just our words. Bless it be, now and bless it be for our future.

Ceremony in 3 movements

3 movements:

the first: Karmic Release Prayer

the second: Shadow Integration Ceremony

the third: An Akashic Confirmation

Movement 1:

Invocation:

We call Earth, Air, Fire, Water, We call the Creator/Wakan Tanka, Tunkashila/Grandfather, White Tara, swift liberator. We call ancestors of your lineage who have only the purest and highest intentions for your wholeness, healing, well being and longevity. This sacred circle is only open to beings who carry and pour forth vibrations of deep compassion, all kinds of love that nourish and comfort. This sacred circle welcomes the energies of honesty, vigilance, integrity, hope, protection, as the nature of these energies may overlap and grow in power. The power built in this sacred circle is one rooted in self awareness, desire for release of all that no longer serves your highest good.
By all that is above, and all that is below, and all that is in between- we are now between the worlds
and what happens between the worlds can change all the worlds. Bless it be.

1. Karmic Release Prayer:

Now I am in the presence of the beings who wish to assist my transformation. As I breathe in, I fill my lungs with the light whose color I choose. As this light fills my body, I release the out breath, with the thought, I release you, go now, be changed forever. As I practice this breath, I take in Air, feeling and seeing the colors I choose in their purest vibration settling into me and relaxing my muscles. And as I get more comfortable, breathing in the color or colors of this light, I breathe out, with the simple thought, I release you, go now, be changed forever.


As I feel myself and the weight of my precious body where I am lying down, I fill my mind with the colored light and energy that comes easily, and naturally to me. And now, as I breathe out, I say to that which harmed me in the past or to that which might harm me in the future, go now, you have no name, I take away your power. I lay here, and I will sit with this incredible truth.

Again, I breathe in a beautiful color and as I exhale, I say, you caused me to suffer, you have no name, you have no energy. I pause, to take in the great capacity I have within me, as my eternal birthright, to be forever blessed with this fantastic ability. From the deep roots of the powers of all the Orishas who have ever blessed me or who know my true inner being, I see from this place of transformation. I can move forward in the world without any cobwebs over my eyes, I can see my way through the maze of human beings with clear sight and clear knowing. I know that my life and my body and my hands have been blessed by the gods and goddesses to do the work and walk the blessed path of a peace maker among human beings and a truth speaker always.

Next, I turn inward, into the great starry cosmos of my inner sanctuary. I look into it, peering into it as though it were a pond of water, reflecting back to me all the deeds and thoughts of this lifetime and all previous lifetimes and as I look closer, even the future lifetimes. I pause here, in gratitude that I may be shown what I am facing when I get to the spinning doors of birth, life, death and rebirth. I am shown, without a doubt, that the pain I have felt comes right up against, like a neighbor, to any pain I ever caused anyone, knowingly or unknowingly, and in this very holy space, I speak to all the pain, caused by me or visited upon me.

And now, as I breathe out, I say, I let go all the resentment, anger, bitterness, fear, hatred, and all other negative forms of energy that keep me from permanently releasing all the pain and suffering I may cause others, that might still dwell within me.

With the divine light and immediate blessing of the Great White Tara shining into me, I ask her, oh, swift liberator, please obliterate the remnants of shadowy intentions that would only weigh me down, when what I seek is to be uplifted and to uplift my fellow sentient beings.

2. Shadow Integration Ceremony

Now with the gentle energy of Great Tara moving into my cells, touching each place that has memories of suffering, in any part of my lineage, I pause here. I look at what I have been taught about the use of force. The Ascended masters teach that humans must be very cautious about the use of force.

The flow of energy that is the most beautiful and most transcendent are the flows that are not forced. When I enter divine space and sense the flow of the water or the dance upward of the fire flame, or the blossoming of plants, growing of forests, I know, all these are my relations. As one who truly comprehends the divine flow embodied in nature, I turn over to you, angels, guides and beneficent ancestors, my tendency to ever incorrectly take up the use of force, against any living being. As a warrior, I  instantly know and respect how I am to step away from the incorrect use of force and as a result, I will offer protection to all who require it, to the best of my ability.

As these beautiful prayers are offered up, now I turn to Grandfather, Tunkashila, and I ask that I may be present as a warrior for truth, for all kinds of justice and nourishment for the rainbow people of earth. I ask that you assist me in welcoming those who have been pushed out and feared. I ask that you make room in my heart and my earth community for the two spirit people, whose persecution must end so that the evolution and upliftment of our species remains intact in its progress.

I will be deeply grateful to contribute to that which strengthens, educates and heals all of us. Assist me in building the bridges between humans in all our communities that will serve the highest good, and assist me in terminating the agreements with those who have shown to work against the highest good. Tunkashila, please assist me in the practice of transparency, and as I truly learn how to practice it, that I may then turn and offer others the opportunity to do the same.

When the time comes for more cleansing which I have begun, I will be humble and open to learning more from all my relations, Tunkashila. Please grant me the enduring kindness and knowledge needed for a highly functional position of leadership, if that is what you find it right to assist in giving me. Help me to clarify all that I have been writing, singing and preparing for, and comfort me with the awareness that none of my story is in vain. I ready my body and spirit to close this ceremony now but keep an open invitation to those energies who were called into the sacred circle.

3 The Akashic Confirmation

I turn over to you, angels and guides, my human anxiety and confusion when it comes to my destiny. In fact, if I decided to go see an open starry night sky, I can rest assured that the story of my life and all past and possible future lifetimes are written in the Pleiades. My Akashic record is sacred and unbroken. All I need to do is go out at night, when the sky is clear and get into a prayerful state, however that feels and looks to me at that moment. Ask, then, that your angels and guides give you direction and comfort when you feel out of balance. Listen for answers. They may rush in to your mind, they may come slowly. They may come over a period of time. Your guides will never fail you. Your whole incredible human body and ancestral lineage is part of an unbroken connection, designed by the divine intelligence that is your very precious soul.

Devocation: I thank all who came to be part of this magical event. Please, go if you must but stay if you will, hail and farewell. May the peace of the Goddess go in our hearts, merry meet, merry part and merry meet again!!

(Time to replenish the body with food and drink. One of the wiccan practices with post ritual nourishment, is we take a piece of food or a bit of the drink and offer it to the other person by saying "May you never go hungry" and also "May you never go thirsty")

Bless it up and enjoy!


I will keep these words of today's ceremony close and it is ensured I will have access to it, should I want to work with the divine energies expressed and honored here in this session.

Indigenous approach to mental illnesses: Part 2

scroll down for Part 2, Thanks!

After the ritual, Alex began to share the messages that the spirit being had for this world. Unfortunately, the people he was talking to didn’t speak English (Dr. Somé was away at that point). The whole experience led, however, to Alex’s going to college to study psychology. He returned to the United States after four years because “he discovered that all the things that he needed to do had been done, and he could then move on with his life.”

The last that Dr. Somé heard was that Alex was in graduate school in psychology at Harvard. No one had thought he would ever be able to complete undergraduate studies, much less get an advanced degree.

Dr. Somé sums up what Alex’s mental illness was all about: “He was reaching out. It was an emergency call. His job and his purpose was to be a healer. He said no one was paying attention to that.”

After seeing how well the shamanic approach worked for Alex, Dr. Somé concluded that spirit beings are just as much an issue in the West as in his community in Africa. “Yet the question still remains, the answer to this problem must be found here, instead of having to go all the way overseas to seek the answer. There has to be a way in which a little bit of attention beyond the pathology of this whole experience leads to the possibility of coming up with the proper ritual to help people.

Longing for Spiritual Connection

A common thread that Dr. Somé has noticed in “mental” disorders in the West is “a very ancient ancestral energy that has been placed in stasis, that finally is coming out in the person.” His job then is to trace it back, to go back in time to discover what that spirit is. In most cases, the spirit is connected to nature, especially with mountains or big rivers, he says.

In the case of mountains, as an example to explain the phenomenon, “it’s a spirit of the mountain that is walking side by side with the person and, as a result, creating a time-space distortion that is affecting the person caught in it.” What is needed is a merger or alignment of the two energies, “so the person and the mountain spirit become one.” Again, the shaman conducts a specific ritual to bring about this alignment.

Dr. Somé believes that he encounters this situation so often in the United States because “most of the fabric of this country is made up of the energy of the machine, and the result of that is the disconnection and the severing of the past. You can run from the past, but you can’t hide from it.” The ancestral spirit of the natural world comes visiting. “It’s not so much what the spirit wants as it is what the person wants,” he says. “The spirit sees in us a call for something grand, something that will make life meaningful, and so the spirit is responding to that.”

That call, which we don’t even know we are making, reflects “a strong longing for a profound connection, a connection that transcends materialism and possession of things and moves into a tangible cosmic dimension. Most of this longing is unconscious, but for spirits, conscious or unconscious doesn’t make any difference.” They respond to either.

As part of the ritual to merge the mountain and human energy, those who are receiving the “mountain energy” are sent to a mountain area of their choice, where they pick up a stone that calls to them. They bring that stone back for the rest of the ritual and then keep it as a companion; some even carry it around with them. “The presence of the stone does a lot in tuning the perceptive ability of the person,” notes Dr. Somé. “They receive all kinds of information that they can make use of, so it’s like they get some tangible guidance from the other world as to how to live their life.”

When it is the “river energy,” those being called go to the river and, after speaking to the river spirit, find a water stone to bring back for the same kind of ritual as with the mountain spirit.

“People think something extraordinary must be done in an extraordinary situation like this,” he says. That’s not usually the case. Sometimes it is as simple as carrying a stone.

A Sacred Ritual Approach to Mental Illness

One of the gifts a shaman can bring to the Western world is to help people rediscover ritual, which is so sadly lacking. “The abandonment of ritual can be devastating. From the spiritual view, ritual is inevitable and necessary if one is to live,” Dr. Somé writes in Ritual: Power, Healing, and Community. “To say that ritual is needed in the industrialized world is an understatement. We have seen in my own people that it is probably impossible to live a sane life without it.”

Dr. Somé did not feel that the rituals from his traditional village could simply be transferred to the West, so over his years of shamanic work here, he has designed rituals that meet the very different needs of this culture. Although the rituals change according to the individual or the group involved, he finds that there is a need for certain rituals in general.

One of these involves helping people discover that their distress is coming from the fact that they are “called by beings from the other world to cooperate with them in doing healing work.” Ritual allows them to move out of the distress and accept that calling.

Another ritual need relates to initiation. In indigenous cultures all over the world, young people are initiated into adulthood when they reach a certain age. The lack of such initiation in the West is part of the crisis that people are in here, says Dr. Somé. He urges communities to bring together “the creative juices of people who have had this kind of experience, in an attempt to come up with some kind of an alternative ritual that would at least begin to put a dent in this kind of crisis.”

Another ritual that repeatedly speaks to the needs of those coming to him for help entails making a bonfire, and then putting into the bonfire “items that are symbolic of issues carried inside the individuals . . . It might be the issues of anger and frustration against an ancestor who has left a legacy of murder and enslavement or anything, things that the descendant has to live with,” he explains. “If these are approached as things that are blocking the human imagination, the person’s life purpose, and even the person’s view of life as something that can improve, then it makes sense to begin thinking in terms of how to turn that blockage into a roadway that can lead to something more creative and more fulfilling.”

The example of issues with an ancestors touches on rituals designed by Dr. Somé that address a serious dysfunction in Western society and in the process “trigger enlightenment” in participants. These are ancestral rituals, and the dysfunction they are aimed at is the mass turning-of-the-back on ancestors. Some of the spirits trying to come through, as described earlier, may be “ancestors who want to merge with a descendant in an attempt to heal what they weren’t able to do while in their physical body.”

“Unless the relationship between the living and the dead is in balance, chaos ensues,” he says. “The Dagara believe that, if such an imbalance exists, it is the duty of the living to heal their ancestors. If these ancestors are not healed, their sick energy will haunt the souls and psyches of those who are responsible for helping them.” The rituals focus on healing the relationship with our ancestors, both specific issues of an individual ancestor and the larger cultural issues contained in our past. Dr. Somé has seen extraordinary healing occur at these rituals.

Taking a sacred ritual approach to mental illness rather than regarding the person as a pathological case gives the person affected–and indeed the community at large–the opportunity to begin looking at it from that vantage point too, which leads to “a whole plethora of opportunities and ritual initiative that can be very, very beneficial to everyone present,” states. Dr. Somé.

The Shamanic View of Mental Illness: Part 1

"In the shamanic view, mental illness signals “the birth of a healer,” explains Malidoma Patrice Somé. Thus, mental disorders are spiritual emergencies, spiritual crises, and need to be regarded as such to aid the healer in being born.
What those in the West view as mental illness, the Dagara people regard as “good news from the other world.” The person going through the crisis has been chosen as a medium for a message to the community that needs to be communicated from the spirit realm. “Mental disorder, behavioral disorder of all kinds, signal the fact that two obviously incompatible energies have merged into the same field,” says Dr. Somé. These disturbances result when the person does not get assistance in dealing with the presence of the energy from the spirit realm.
One of the things Dr. Somé encountered when he first came to the United States in 1980 for graduate study was how this country deals with mental illness. When a fellow student was sent to a mental institute due to “nervous depression,” Dr. Somé went to visit him.
“I was so shocked. That was the first time I was brought face to face with what is done here to people exhibiting the same symptoms I’ve seen in my village.” What struck Dr. Somé was that the attention given to such symptoms was based on pathology, on the idea that the condition is something that needs to stop. This was in complete opposition to the way his culture views such a situation. As he looked around the stark ward at the patients, some in straitjackets, some zoned out on medications, others screaming, he observed to himself, “So this is how the healers who are attempting to be born are treated in this culture. What a loss! What a loss that a person who is finally being aligned with a power from the other world is just being wasted.”
Another way to say this, which may make more sense to the Western mind, is that we in the West are not trained in how to deal or even taught to acknowledge the existence of psychic phenomena, the spiritual world. In fact, psychic abilities are denigrated. When energies from the spiritual world emerge in a Western psyche, that individual is completely unequipped to integrate them or even recognize what is happening. The result can be terrifying. Without the proper context for and assistance in dealing with the breakthrough from another level of reality, for all practical purposes, the person is insane. Heavy dosing with anti-psychotic drugs compounds the problem and prevents the integration that could lead to soul development and growth in the individual who has received these energies.
On the mental ward, Dr Somé saw a lot of “beings” hanging around the patients, “entities” that are invisible to most people but that shamans and psychics are able to see. “They were causing the crisis in these people,” he says. It appeared to him that these beings were trying to get the medications and their effects out of the bodies of the people the beings were trying to merge with, and were increasing the patients’ pain in the process. “The beings were acting almost like some kind of excavator in the energy field of people. They were really fierce about that. The people they were doing that to were just screaming and yelling,” he said. He couldn’t stay in that environment and had to leave.
In the Dagara tradition, the community helps the person reconcile the energies of both worlds–”the world of the spirit that he or she is merged with, and the village and community.” That person is able then to serve as a bridge between the worlds and help the living with information and healing they need. Thus, the spiritual crisis ends with the birth of another healer. “The other world’s relationship with our world is one of sponsorship,” Dr. Somé explains. “More often than not, the knowledge and skills that arise from this kind of merger are a knowledge or a skill that is provided directly from the other world.”
The beings who were increasing the pain of the inmates on the mental hospital ward were actually attempting to merge with the inmates in order to get messages through to this world. The people they had chosen to merge with were getting no assistance in learning how to be a bridge between the worlds and the beings’ attempts to merge were thwarted. The result was the sustaining of the initial disorder of energy and the aborting of the birth of a healer.
“The Western culture has consistently ignored the birth of the healer,” states Dr. Somé. “Consequently, there will be a tendency from the other world to keep trying as many people as possible in an attempt to get somebody’s attention. They have to try harder.” The spirits are drawn to people whose senses have not been anesthetized. “The sensitivity is pretty much read as an invitation to come in,” he notes.
Those who develop so-called mental disorders are those who are sensitive, which is viewed in Western culture as oversensitivity. Indigenous cultures don’t see it that way and, as a result, sensitive people don’t experience themselves as overly sensitive. In the West, “it is the overload of the culture they’re in that is just wrecking them,” observes Dr. Somé. The frenetic pace, the bombardment of the senses, and the violent energy that characterize Western culture can overwhelm sensitive people.
Schizophrenia and Foreign Energy
With schizophrenia, there is a special “receptivity to a flow of images and information, which cannot be controlled,” stated Dr. Somé. “When this kind of rush occurs at a time that is not personally chosen, and particularly when it comes with images that are scary and contradictory, the person goes into a frenzy.”
What is required in this situation is first to separate the person’s energy from the extraneous foreign energies, by using shamanic practice (what is known as a “sweep”) to clear the latter out of the individual’s aura. With the clearing of their energy field, the person no longer picks up a flood of information and so no longer has a reason to be scared and disturbed, explains Dr. Somé.
Then it is possible to help the person align with the energy of the spirit being attempting to come through from the other world and give birth to the healer. The blockage of that emergence is what creates problems. “The energy of the healer is a high-voltage energy,” he observes. “When it is blocked, it just burns up the person. It’s like a short-circuit. Fuses are blowing. This is why it can be really scary, and I understand why this culture prefers to confine these people. Here they are yelling and screaming, and they’re put into a straitjacket. That’s a sad image.” Again, the shamanic approach is to work on aligning the energies so there is no blockage, “fuses” aren’t blowing, and the person can become the healer they are meant to be.
It needs to be noted at this point, however, that not all of the spirit beings that enter a person’s energetic field are there for the purposes of promoting healing. There are negative energies as well, which are undesirable presences in the aura. In those cases, the shamanic approach is to remove them from the aura, rather than work to align the discordant energies
Alex: Crazy in the USA, Healer in Africa
To test his belief that the shamanic view of mental illness holds true in the Western world as well as in indigenous cultures, Dr. Somé took a mental patient back to Africa with him, to his village. “I was prompted by my own curiosity to find out whether there’s truth in the universality that mental illness could be connected with an alignment with a being from another world,” says Dr. Somé.
Alex was an 18-year-old American who had suffered a psychotic break when he was 14. He had hallucinations, was suicidal, and went through cycles of dangerously severe depression. He was in a mental hospital and had been given a lot of drugs, but nothing was helping. “The parents had done everything–unsuccessfully,” says Dr. Somé. “They didn’t know what else to do.”
With their permission, Dr. Somé took their son to Africa. “After eight months there, Alex had become quite normal, Dr. Somé reports. He was even able to participate with healers in the business of healing; sitting with them all day long and helping them, assisting them in what they were doing with their clients . . . . He spent about four years in my village.” Alex stayed by choice, not because he needed more healing. He felt, “much safer in the village than in America.”
To bring his energy and that of the being from the spiritual realm into alignment, Alex went through a shamanic ritual designed for that purpose, although it was slightly different from the one used with the Dagara people. “He wasn’t born in the village, so something else applied. But the result was similar, even though the ritual was not literally the same,” explains Dr. Somé. The fact that aligning the energy worked to heal Alex demonstrated to Dr. Somé that the connection between other beings and mental illness is indeed universal."

Good insights about Psychospiritual Crisis

"One of the most important implications of the research of holotropic states is the realization that many of the conditions, which are currently diagnosed as psychotic and indiscriminately treated by suppressive medication, are actually difficult stages of a radical personality transformation and of spiritual opening. If they are correctly understood and supported, these psychospiritual crises can result in emotional and psychosomatic healing, remarkable psychological transformation, and consciousness evolution (Grof and Grof 1989, 1990).

Episodes of this nature can be found in the life stories of shamans, founders of the great religions of the world, famous spiritual teachers, mystics, and saints. Mystical literature of the world describes these crises as important signposts of the spiritual path and confirms their healing and transformative potential. Mainstream psychiatrists do not differentiate psychospiritual crises, or even episodes of uncomplicated mystical experiences, from serious mental diseases, because of their narrow conceptual framework.

When we emphasize the need to recognize the existence of psychospiritual crises, this does not mean indiscriminate rejection of the theories and practices of traditional psychiatry. Not all states that are currently diagnosed as psychotic are crises of psychospiritual transformation or hav a healing potential. Episodes of nonordinary states of consciousness cover a very broad spectrum from purely spiritual experiences to conditions that are clearly biological in nature and require medical treatment. While modern psychiatrists generally tend to pathologize mystical states, there also exists the opposite error of romanticizing and glorifying psychotic states or, even worse, overlooking a serious medical problem."

Sharing from heart space

There is an inexplicable phenomenon going on inside my heart space, and I will share it. Amidst all the turmoil, all the suffering and chaos, there is some kind of powerful light at the end of these tunnels. There is hope beyond what you’ve imagined or felt but it’s time to feel it. If I sit in meditation and do breath work, this awareness of world transformation and many huge transitions and beautiful transmissions are available and are on their way. To be clear, I’m not negating or denying the depth of our current suffering, the way we are collectively cut off from source light, love and power. I’m not denying the suffering of individuals either. It is with all this in mind that I bring so. Much. Hope. If you cannot sense it, there is nothing wrong with you! That means you have not yet been called to find it in you, but when you’re ready, you will.

12 Interfaith Prayers for Peace

The Peace Seeds:

12 Interfaith Prayers for Peace

Peace Seeds represent the twelve prayers for peace prayed in Assisi, Italy on the Day of Prayer for World Peace during the United Nations International Year of Peace, 1986. The prayers are entrusted to humanity with this thought:

"Like the bee gathering honey from the different flowers,

the wise person accepts the essence of the different scriptures

and sees only the good in all religions."

The versions of the prayers presented below have been phrased as poems, for ease of use in ceremonial ministry.

        

   Hindu Prayer for Peace

Oh God, lead us from the unreal to the Real.
Oh God, lead us from darkness to light.
Oh God, lead us from death to immortality.

Shanti, Shanti, Shanti unto all.
Oh Lord God almighty,
May there be peace in celestial regions.

May there be peace on earth.
May the waters be appeasing.
May herbs be wholesome,

And may trees and plants bring peace to all.
May all beneficent beings bring peace to us.
May thy Vedic Law propagate peace all through the world.

May all things be a source of peace to us.
And may thy peace itself, bestow peace on all –
And may that peace come to me also.

           Buddhist Prayer for Peace

May all beings everywhere plagued with sufferings of body and mind
Quickly be freed from their illnesses.
May those frightened cease to be afraid,
And may those bound be free.

May the powerless find power, and may people think of befriending one another.
May those who find themselves in trackless, fearful wildernesses –
The children, the aged, the unprotected –
Be guarded by beneficent celestials, and may they swiftly attain Buddhahood.

           Jainist Prayer for Peace

Peace and Universal Love
is the essence of the Gospel
preached by all the Enlightened Ones.
The Lord has preached that equanimity is the Dharma.

Forgive do I creatures all, and let all creatures forgive me.
Unto all have I amity, and unto none enmity.

Know that violence is the root cause of all miseries in the world.
Violence, in fact, is the knot of bondage.

“Do not injure any living being.”
This is the eternal, perennial, and unalterable way of spiritual life.

Any weapon, howsoever powerful it may be,
can always be superseded by a superior one;
But no weapon can, however, be superior to non-violence and love.

           Muslim Prayer for Peace

In the name of Allah, the beneficent, the merciful.
Praise be to the Lord of the Universe
Who has created us and made us into tribes and nations,
That we may know each other, not that we may despise each other.

If the enemy inclines towards peace,
Do thou also incline towards peace,
And trust in God,
For the Lord is the one that heareth and knoweth all things.

And the servants of God, Most Gracious,
Are those who walk on the Earth in humility,
And when we address them,
We say "PEACE."

           Sikh Prayer for Peace

God adjudges us according to our deeds,
Not the coat that we wear:
That Truth is above everything,
But higher still is truthful living.

Know that we attaineth God
When we loveth,
And only that victory endures
In consequence of which no one is defeated. 

           Bahai’ Prayer for Peace

Be generous in prosperity,
And thankful in adversity.

Be fair in thy judgement,
And guarded in thy speech.

Be a lamp unto those who walk in darkness,
And a home to the stranger.

Be eyes to the blind,
And a guiding light unto the feet of the erring.

Be a breath of life
To the body of humankind,

A dew
To the soil of the human heart,

And a fruit
Upon the tree of humility.

           Shinto Prayer for Peace

Although the people living across the ocean
Surrounding us, I believe,
Are all our brothers and sisters,
Why are there constant troubles in this world?

Why do winds and waves rise in the ocean surrounding us?
I only earnestly wish that the wind
Will soon puff away all the clouds
Which are hanging over the tops of the mountains.

           Native African Prayer for Peace

Almighty God,
The Great Thumb
We cannot evade
To tie any knot;

The Roaring Thunder
That splits mighty trees;
The all-seeing Lord
Up on high

Who sees
Even the footprints
Of an antelope
On a rock mass here on Earth.

You are the one
Who does not hesitate
To respond to our call.
You are the cornerstone of peace.

           Native American Prayer for Peace

O Great Spirit of our Ancestors,
I raise my pipe to you.
To your messengers the four winds,
And to Mother Earth
Who provides for your children.

Give us the wisdom to teach our children
To love, to respect, and to be kind to each other
So that they may grow with peace in mind.
Let us learn to share all the good things
That you provide for us on this Earth.

           Zoroastrian Prayer for Peace

We pray to God
To eradicate all the misery in the world;

That understanding triumph over ignorance,
That generosity triumph over indifference,

That trust triumph over contempt,
And that truth triumph over falsehood.

           Jewish Prayer for Peace

Come let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
That we may walk the paths of the Most High.

And we shall beat our swords into ploughshares,
And our spears into pruning hooks.

Nation shall not lift up sword against nation –
Neither shall they learn war any more.

And none shall be afraid,
For the mouth of the Lord of Hosts has spoken.

           Christian Prayer for Peace

Blessed are the PEACEMAKERS,
For they shall be known as Children of God.

But I say to you that hear, love your enemies,
Do good to those who hate you,

Bless those who curse you,
Pray for those who abuse you.

To those who strike you on the cheek,
Offer the other also,

And from those who take away your cloak,
Do not withhold your coat as well.

Give to everyone who begs from you,
And of those who take away your goods,

Do not ask them again.
And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.