September 29, 2009
Intention as prayer
Yesterday afternoon was very dark, and then on the drive home from work it rained, but at the end there was a strange sunset light, the sky like champagne, pale gold where the clouds broke. Like that, clarity emerges, a glimpse, a snatch of music, a fleeting instant that clutches at the heart.
What is my intention? Do my actions support it or undercut it? What have I forgotten in the busyness of the day? The light breaks through, and suddenly I feel it again, that call, that promise of delight, almost near enough to touch. And I pledge myself once more.
Last night I lit candles and poured water for my Beloveds, for my Akhu, and for Djehuty, the God of the Year, even though I was tired and resistant — “I have too much to do” — but then, what more important than this? Right now, Djehuty affirms, I need two things that intertwine with each other: discipline, to settle myself to my work; and coolness, to soothe my agitation so that I can find focus and calm. It comes back to holding that energy within myself, containing it so that I can make good and appropriate use of it. So this week I work on loosening the grip of my two addictions, both of which make me restless and “hot”: caffeine and Internet surfing. And although I’ve addressed this issue before, and “forgotten” with passage of time, I haven’t given up on it, and that counts for something — a reaching for the light, however fumbling; a link in the chain of effort; a repeated opening to the brilliance of the sun.
I dreamed once of a yellow bird that was also a prayer, released to skim upward toward the sky, and of a quiet man who told me, “Keep sending it up.”
Again and again, a return to the center, to intention, to the still point of meditation, to the heart’s sweet, piercing longing.
Keep sending it up.