Week 52--in which we discover our personal special prayer for 2026

Beautiful Ones,

This is the last newsletter of the year. I consider carefully what I say in all my Notes from the Field, but the final letter always feels like it calls for something special. Something culminating. Something holy.

But what can I say about a year that has broken all our hearts? A year in which we were forced to bear witness to unfettered white fascist power spewing anger and cruelty over the land. We feel dirtied.

So when I pondered what to say today on this last Sunday in December, I returned to January when I stumbled upon the Elizabeth Kubler-Ross quote that carried me through the year.

Dr Kubler-Ross, the great student of dying, wrote:

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”

This is us. We have felt hopeless in the face of power that relishes power. We have witnessed suffering. And in the witnessing, our bodies, our psyches, and our hearts have curled into the fetal position, begging when, when, oh when, does the cruelty end. We have experienced massive losses including the loss of trust and truth in governance.

All of that is true. All of that is why we feel dirty, but, read Dr Kubler-Ross’s conclusion before you despair.

• When we stay alive and sensitive.
• When we do not harden our hearts to what is happening.
• When we stay porous to one another.
• Then, we find that our hearts can fill with compassion.
• With gentleness. And with loving concern.

This is how beautiful people happen, and we are resolved to be beautiful, even in a world that appears to be anything but.

My primary way of staying alive, sensitive, and porous is prayer.

Real prayer. Not formulaic prayer dictated by any patriarchal religion, but prayer that bubbles up from my life, my heart, my sacred purpose, and my hope.

I call this kind of prayer, the prayer of discovery. Because you have to discover it for yourself.

So, on this last Sunday, my gift to you from the field of prayer is the story of how I discovered my powerful prayer and how you might discover your own for 2026.

I call the prayer I write on January 1, my Solar Vow.

And I say my Solar Vow every day as I begin my deep soul writing. For years, I wrote a new prayer on January 1 after I made my year-creating mandala. But something unusual happened on January 1, 2017. Something so powerful that this short Solar Vow has continued to be my first prayer of the day for nine years! I revisit it every January 1, and I will again next week, but I love every word of it so fully, that it’s hard for me to imagine anything replacing it.

I love this prayer because it is so alive. Real prayer is always alive, beautiful, surprising, and mysterious. If you understand a prayer, or think you do, it’s not a living, breathing prayer, it’s an obligation, or a formula, or a habit.

Even after saying this Solar Vow every day for 3,285 days, this prayer still surprises me. It happened this morning.

As I said the words “stop, stir, awaken,” I suddenly heard it differently. I stopped and said the three verbs aloud and realized, oh I know what this is!

These three steps are the deep mystical transformation that happens in a near death experience. Life stops, everything stirs in the opposite direction, and when you return, you are awakened in a whole new way. In Future Memory, PMH Atwater shares insights gained through interviews with thousands of near death experiencers including herself.

She describes the steps in detail and calls the final awakening step an “imprint.”

Carrying this imprint, near death experiencers return to life different. And they know they are different. Their senses are different; their understanding is different. And they often experience the future before it happens, hence the title.

I am studying NDEs and other biological and botanical phenomena in preparation for the seventh and final ART intensive on awakening the memory of dragon. So those three words popped out when I said them this morning.

But, consider: I wrote them nine years ago. Was I writing this prayer with future memory?

Here’s how I wrote my Solar Vow that I love so much. I hope reading my story will inspire you to find your own path to your own prayer for 2026.

On New Year’s Day 2017, I picked up Thomas Merton: A Book of Hours, a beautiful day book with short excerpts from Merton’s prose and poems for dawn, day, dusk, and dark for each day of the week. Now I’m not a dawn sort of person—I need and relish long deep sleep—but for several years, I would read the day excerpt as part of my deep soul writing and the dusk excerpt before dinner.

On January 1, 2017, I decided to reread the Foreword written by Merton’s famous novice, James Finley.

In the Foreword, Jim is trying to teach us how to understand Merton. After a long quote from Merton’s The Hidden Ground of Love that ends with Merton telling us we are “full of paradise without knowing it,” Jim writes:

“We do not know that we are full of paradise because we are so full of our own noise that we cannot hear God singing us and all things into being. And so Merton shows us the way home. He surrenders so completely to God’s silence that when he begins to speak, his voice and God’s voice merge in a polyphony of grace and glory that causes our own hearts to begin to stir and awaken.”

I stopped. I reread Jim’s description. I read it aloud. I was so stunned that I knew I needed to record the date in the margin. I wrote the quote in my journal. I said it aloud once more.

And then, this prayer poured out of my hand onto the page. With language I love. Language that speaks to my heart. God and glory don’t fit for me, these words do:

Janet's Solar Vow, 1-1-2017

I surrender so completely to Sophia’s Love
that when I begin to speak,
my voice and Sophia’s Voice merge
in a harmony of grace, beauty, and love
that causes hearts to
stop, stir, awaken
and surrender to love

This Thursday, I will make my 2026 mandala, and for the tenth year in a row I will revisit my Solar Vow.

Will it change? We shall see! For now, I know I will be happy to say it for the next nine years, listening every day for what it senses I’m ready to hear.

Enjoy discovering your prayer for 2026.

I have received the theme for next year and it’s one overflowing with hope and discovery.

I'll introduce it next Sunday.

Life is fragile, handle with reverence, and prayer

Janet

PS: Emma Kupu Mitchell has created a radically different, year-long astrology walk for 2026. Register now, the very low price of $55 goes up after January 11.

Ignite Change

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