Season of Creation September 15, 2021 - Week 3

 

7:00pm EST
Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81507551772
Meeting ID: 815 0755 1772
To connect by phone dial: +1 646 558 8656

Opening Prayer: Earth Mother, Star Mother by Starhawk

Earth mother, star mother, 

you who are called 

by a thousand names,

may all remember 

we are cells in your body 

and dance together.

You are the grain and 

the loaf 

that sustains us each day, 

and as you are patient 

with our struggles to learn 

so shall we be patient 

with ourselves and each other. 

We are the radiant light 

and sacred dark

- the balance -

you are the embrace that heartens

and the freedom beyond fear.

Within you we are born 

we grow, live, and die -  

you bring us around the circle 

to rebirth 

within us you dance 

forever.

Reading: “Love Every Leaf” by Margaret Bulitt-Jonas

In times like these, our prayer may need to be expressive and embodied, visceral and vocal. How else can we pray with our immense anger and grief? How else can we pray about ecocide, about the death that humanity is unleashing upon Mother Earth and upon ourselves? How else can we break through our inertia and despair, so that we don’t shut down and go numb? . . . .

I’ve taken to praying outdoors. I go outside, feel the good earth beneath my feet and the wind on my face, and I sing to the trees—to oak and beech, hemlock and pines. Making up the words and music as I go along, I sing my grief to the trees that are going down, and my grief for so much more—for what we have lost and are losing, and for what we are likely to lose. I sing my outrage about these beautiful old trees being cut to the roots, their bodies chipped to bits and hauled away to sell. I sing my fury about the predicament we’re in as a species. I sing my protest of the political and corporate powers-that-be that drive forward relentlessly with business as usual, razing forests, drilling for more oil and fracked gas, digging for more coal, expanding pipeline construction, and opening up public lands and waters to endless exploitation, as if Earth were their private business and they were conducting a liquidation sale. I sing out my shame to the trees, my repentance and apology for the part I have played in Earth’s destruction and for the part my ancestors played when they stole land and chopped down the original forests of the Native peoples who lived here. I sing my praise for the beauty of trees and my resolve not to let a day go by that I don’t celebrate the precious living world of which we are so blessedly a part. I’m not finished until I sing my determination to renew action for trees and for all of God’s Creation. . . .

So our prayer may be noisy and expressive, or it may be very quiet. It may be the kind of prayer that depends on listening in stillness and silence with complete attention: listening to the crickets as they pulse at night, listening to the rain as it falls, listening to our breath as we breathe God in and breathe God out, listening to the inner voice of love that is always sounding in our heart. A discipline of contemplative prayer or meditation can set us free from the frantic churn of thoughts and feelings and enable our spirit to rest and roam in a vaster, wilder space.

Margaret Bullitt-Jonas, “Love Every Leaf,” in Rooted & Rising: Voices of Courage in a Time of Climate Crisis, eds. Leah D. Schade and Margaret Bullitt-Jonas, (Rowman & Littlefield: 2019), 175, 176–177.

Closing Prayer: 

Oh Divine Beloved, 

as this part of the earth turns away from the sun, we turn toward you.

We lift up to you our song of thanksgiving for all the gifts and blessings of this day. Among those gifts are the trials and tribulations 

that serve as opportunities to strengthen our love for you. 

Before we conclude this day, we desire that all things be at peace.

We reflect on our relationships with the earth, with others and with you. 

How wondrous is the universe that you have made.

To reach the nearest star would take several lifetimes,

 so fast is the distance that separates us.

As we prepare to sleep your act of creation continues.

New stars are born admidst a swirl of dust and gases, exploding  in an ecstasy of light. May the work of our re-creation continue as we rest our minds and bodies in sleep. With trust we turn over our world and all we love to you. Amen.

(adapted from Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim by Edward Hays)

Closing Song : Love Song to the Earth

https://youtu.be/zBEGxqJKup8

Earth Altar by Margaret Dilgen