The year of the body--Week 38

in which prayer proves she is ALIVE.

Friends, soul writers, mystics, and lovers of prayer,

Prayer is alive. Alive. That means prayer grows and morphs and changes. That means sometimes she steps aside and sometimes she marches onto center stage and bursts into song.

I never know what prayer is going to do. But prayer does. Because prayer is alive.

“Prayer is alive” is a foundational truth in my life as a prayer artist. Knowing that prayer is alive has changed everything. And brought startling and exciting magic.

Like a boy cutting in on the dance floor, prayer artist tapped me on the shoulder in the wee hours of February 25, 2018, and asked for a dance.

That dance hasn’t ended and I hope it never will.

My first partner was the prayers I grew up with. Along with those prayers came a small, rather limited understanding of prayer.

Thinking small about prayer wasn’t my fault. Prayer was presented as a formula, an obligation, a rote performance with specific words to be said at specific times. Indeed that is the definition of prayer you'll find in any dictionary.

Prayer wasn't alive. She was trapped on the pages of my red missal. The words weren’t even words I could read. The prayers were written in Latin, a “dead” language.

No wonder everyone thought of prayer as dead.

So it was easy for me to walk away from prayer. I stopped considering myself a catholic in 1967 and I stopped praying.

But prayer was patient and waited for me.

She waited fifty years. When she felt I was ready, she whispered, “prayer artist” in my left ear.

I was not happy about this.

But I’d been deep soul writing with my beloved divine voice for two decades and knew enough to recognize whose voice that was.

And I knew enough to know that the only response was “yes.”

So when I got out of bed that morning I knew I was a prayer artist—whatever that meant.

One of the first tasks prayer gave me was to redefine prayer. Re-sacralize it. Re-new prayer in the eyes and hearts of people.

In other words, bring prayer alive.

But first I had to fall in love with prayer. How could I ask you to love prayer if I didn't adore her.

So I asked Kahu Lāhela Johnson to join me in creating my first ever prayer intensive. I asked her to lead us in falling in love with Ho’oponopono.

I love this prayer. I began to say it in 2013 when my son was a political prisoner and falling apart in prison. Just 2 months after I began, he was suddenly and unexpectedly released. That early release saved his life.

Well, I thought, that’s one powerful prayer!

Kahu Lāhela and I proceeded to offer six intensives around this prayer—3 in 2018, 2 in 2019, and 1 in 2020.

Each intensive had a unique focus, so Lāhela would listen intently as her Guides dictated the way they wanted the prayer spoken for that intention. They also told her which sacred Hawaiian chants (Oli) to sing and how to talk about the prayer within the Hawaiian traditions.

When Lāhela and I would get together on zoom to create an intensive, I would wait in silence as she turned slightly to the left and slightly to the right listening to what her Spirit Guides wanted us to do.

With each successive Ho'oponopono prayer intensive more and more of you came. Over 500 people have come to those intensives. Each time, members would talk excitedly about the miraculous healing that was happening in their relationships, their lives, and even their bodies.

So I assumed Lāhela and I would offer a seventh Ho’oponopono prayer intensive in 2022.

But along came The Return of the Witches Jeanne d’Arc Listening Pilgrimage that just ended.

During the summer-long pilgrimage, we listened as 13 women and men abused and silenced by patriarchy stepped out of the past to invite us to meet them as real people. We surrounded each of them with prayer and one of those prayers was Ho’oponopono.

Lāhela came each week dressed in ceremonial clothes, chanting Oli, and showering us with sacred water from her Blessing Bowl. And then, leading us in this Shamanic prayer.

I could see the impact this prayer was having on everyone in the pilgrimage.

In our private Facebook group and in our discussion gatherings, people talked again and again about the cleansing and freedom they felt saying this prayer.

But my fellow pilgrims weren’t the only ones experiencing changes and shifts. So was Lāhela. I could see something happening in and through her over our 13 weeks together.

So I wasn’t surprised when at our closing ceremony, Lāhela did not lead us in Ho’oponopono.

Instead, she said she’d been listening intently to her Spirit Guides and they asked her to bring us a new form of prayer from the ancient Hawaiian Shamanic tradition. They said it was time for us to have a prayer that we can adjust and finetune to our own lives.

Lāhela's Guides told her the prayer is called Hana I Ka Pono.

You probably recognize the word pono. Pono has a range of meanings including: beneficial, right, correct, balance, goodness, morality, excellence, virtuous.

So Hana I Ka Pono means taking responsibility for creating wellness and goodness in our own lives, our own relationships, and the situations we find ourselves in.

How do we create that goodness and wellness? Through the cleansing and healing power of forgiveness.

As a prayer artist, I’m ecstatic about this!

Not only do I adore Kahu Lāhela and all the beauty of the ancient Shamanic Hawaiian traditions she has brought us, but being at the birth of this new prayer is such a holy reminder that prayer is ALIVE.

She’s alive. Prayer is giving us a new form of a most ancient way to pray, a form that will help us move through the chaos that is afoot now and is going to continue.

It's time for Hana I Ka Pono. 

When 2021 began, I could not have predicted that in October we’d be honored to be the first to learn Hana I Ka Pono. Why, Lāhela didn’t even know that. But prayer did.

So I don't think Lāhela and I are the ones inviting you to join us in this short 3-session prayer intensive on 3 Saturdays in October (Oct 9, 16, 23) for just 90 minutes from 2-3:30 pm Eastern.

Prayer herself is inviting you.

Lāhela and I had a delightful time recording a special video and writing a detailed description of what you will experience in Hana I Ka Pono. We also decided to reduce the registration so everyone can join us.

Enjoy this landing page, then please register. I invited the 85 members of the pilgrimage first and we're filling fast.

Hana I Ka Pono prayer intensive 

to dancing in joy with a delicious partner called prayer! 

Janet