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

I always note the number of the week in these Notes from the Field letters. Somehow, there’s a seed of insight in the number.

We are in the 16^th week in this six year, the year we are asked to learn to listen to love.

I sense the sixteen has something important to say. Something that is superseding what I intended to write about today.

As soon as I realized it’s the 16^th week, I also realized that all week long I’ve noticed an unusual number of posts on social media about frightening things happening. Friend after friend after friend posted about ER visits, heart attacks, surgeries, accidents, and falls.

And guess what, I had one too. I twisted my ankle walking on the trail outside my home. I was able to limp home and I’m fine, but I'm moving very slowly.

The last time that ankle gave way under me was 55 years ago. There’s something to ponder here.

Sixteen is the tower card in the Tarot—a scary-looking card that many are afraid to see in their spread.

But I rather like the 16.

• Maybe because that number is part of my birthdate.
• Maybe because it’s one of the four Pythagorean karmic numbers and holds deep, if mysterious, wisdom.
• Maybe because for a while now, I’ve viewed the tower card as the symbol of the collapse of the abusive control and hierarchy of patriarchal systems.

Everything I do as a prayer artist and mystic witch is in service to the demise of patriarchy. So I choose to look at the 16 tower card as something to hope for, not something to fear.

In The Tarot Handbook, Angeles Arrien tells us that 16 is “the principle of restoration, renovation, de-structuring old forms.” I’m all in on “restoration, renovation, and de-structing the old forms.” Aren’t we all?

So, yes, the tower must fall, and the collapse on the card certainly looks violent, but Arrien reminds us “this is the change and awakening that is required to dismantle that which is artificial, false-to-fact, or conditioned within our natures.”

My instinctual response to people telling me about their woes is to pray. In addition to praying for friends experiencing physical pain right now, I’m also praying for people facing legal problems, financial fears, and losing loved ones. All of that in addition to praying for people experiencing chaos around the globe.

There seems to be an awful lot to pray for right now. Is it more than I can carry? Is it too much? Is that why I fell?

For a moment I felt that weight. But then I remembered the very first prayer that came flying through my hands the morning after I woke hearing “prayer artist” in the night.

And remembered that I don’t have to know how I pray. Or when. Or even that I am praying.

If you, too, are feeling a tad overwhelmed by all the suffering and chaos you see, and wondering if your prayers make any difference, this prayer is for you.

Sometimes I Pray

©Janet Conner
Sunday Feb 25, 2018, first prayer after hearing “Prayer Artist” in the night

Sometimes I pray WITH you

side-by-side, body-to-body, heat-to-heat
our prayers mingling like smoke
rising into the sky, going who knows where

Sometimes I pray FOR you

holding you up to the Queen of Love
asking you be cleansed, purified,
and transmuted into a living pathway of love

Sometimes I pray BESIDE you

not knowing who you are
or what you’re praying
or where or when or even how
but praying beside you anyway—
two hearts that might never meet
but recognize one another somehow

Sometimes I pray AROUND you

circling your pain
circling your confusion
circling your anger and your sobs

I chant mysterious songs
and sway to secret beats
trusting the words and rhythms
to wrap you in their sacred healing cloth

I hope the colors penetrate your skin
I hope the sounds massage your aching heart

Maybe nothing happens
Maybe everything happens

I don’t know, but
I pray around you anyway

Sometimes I pray IN you

I’m not sure how this happens
When did I enter your heart?
When did you enter mine?

But sometimes I am in you and you are in me
and together we create a prayer neither of us knew before—
a prayer we might never be able to replicate again

It’s the moment, this moment
and in this moment we are one spirit, you and I—
one heart, one being, remembering who we really are

Sometimes my prayers are potent
Sometimes my prayers are dust
Sometimes my prayers are fearless
Sometimes just whimpers in the night

Sometimes they dissolve into weeping
Sometimes they morph into song
Sometimes they send me dancing
Sometimes they cut me cold

Sometimes I know I’m praying
Often I do not

Is this a prayer?
Or is this a life?

Or are they the same thing?

_________________

Four years later, I do think they are the same thing.

Prayer and life. Prayer and love. Prayer and hope. Prayer and possibility.

Do my prayers do any good? I cannot know the answer. Prayer weaves me into the unknown and the unknowing. And I invite you to join me there.

Next Sunday, I’ll write the newsletter I planned for today. In perfect synchronicity, it’s an invitation to come and pray with Kahu Lahela and me in a brand new Hana I Ka Pono prayer practice designed for this moment in time. Her guides called it “the critical prayer for 2022.”

All week, I’ll send invitations to everyone who has been in any of her 7 previous prayer intensives with me.

Until next Sunday, may your prayers bring you a feeling of wholeness, whether you understand it or not.

to praying...anyway,

Janet

PS: You can read and share all my Notes from the Field from the blog section on my website.

You can hear me and Hyldemoer read Notes from the Field on YouTube.

website: janetconner.com

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