This morning, I was gifted by the visit of those two beautiful beings on the land. Peaceful and alert presence. Soft eye gaze. Gratitude of the sunrise behind them. Gratitude for what the land gifts me and that I often do not fully grasp.
The first thing I do when I wake up is going to check on my chickens. This morning, I found them locked in as their coop door had frozen.
Then I go to the greenhouse and check how the plants did at night. Check heat, water, and their general health.
Then I go to gather some wood to restart the stove. Making sure the house will get warm in the morning.
Then I walked around the house and checked my house plants and how they slept and felt that morning.
In Andean Cosmology, the prayer of Unity, carried by the wind, is shown to us by the Deers. They can show us how to walk beyond duality while still understanding the duality present in the depth of human experiences.
The prayer of Unity is a reminder that there are no others. But also that this life was never about us but about the "others". Something the mind cannot grasp, but the heart can feel.
Being in service to the land, the animals or plants who need our care is my first prayer in the morning. Before I even start what many call "self-care" or "self-practice". Prayers for the world translate into actions that can reveal the prayer.
As I age, I see more and more that this gift to the "others" can be deeply connected to the prayer of gratitude and to gifting "us." We dismantle the tremendous forces of selfishness, personal identity, and self-needs into a greater web of relation.
As this prayer opens, we understand that nothing is done, experienced, felt, seen, heard, created, imagined, and weaved without being in relation to the greater collective web.
We start to feel that our bodies are not limited to our skin and bones but extend into the world around us (in us). We understand that everything, even the most intimate thoughts, feelings, and spiritual experiences are always in relation to all there is.
As I invite this prayer to reveal itself, there are days when I can not find the clear illusion of boundaries I placed between my pain and the pain of the world. In those moments the illusion of healing the "self" is fully weaved into the healing of the whole.
We learn to dismantle the illusion that by coming first we will somehow arrive on top. As we unlearn that we are not sitting on top of a pyramid but in a circle, a spiral, a double helix of evolution and connection.
We can see more clearly that scarcity is a symptom of the illness of systemic greed and we can discover beyond it a world that is deeply abundant and constantly trying to show us another possible reality.
Maybe by coming neither first nor last, in a circle where there is no hierarchy, where we can't find ourselves without the others, we truly allow all there is, beyond the "me", to discover a deeper truth of belonging.
This "me" that I was defined to be and learned to become, can finally weave itself with its connections into a more authentic and humbling presence.
A depth of unknown gratitude arises from such practice. The capitalistic and colonial veils fade. The old confusion gets dissolved. New stories can be received. A deeper sense of connection grows so that the immense power of unconditional love can repair all that is broken.
We walk the prayer in places we never thought could be the holiest places.
💞
Angell Deer
