Showing posts with label Prayer and Thanksgiving Month Radical Virgo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Prayer and Thanksgiving Month Radical Virgo. Show all posts

Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Welcome the Day: The Prayer of Intention






I welcome this day and give thanks for
all of the gifts and blessings that I 
am, that I give, and that I receive. 
 
I am filled with grace, joy and possibility.
I celebrate, embrace and 
bless this life and my place in it.  

~~~

Photo Credit: © kevron2001 - Fotolia.com


Prayer Credits: Heard on NPR by my friend Linda Byrd. Linda is an astrologer and spiritual life coach you might want to get to know.  

Monday, November 30, 2015

Prayer for Social Networking



© 2015 by Joyce Mason



May I share from the highest part of me:
Information
Inspiration
Well-thought opinions
Humor and play.

May I avoid “ain’t it awful”
Soap boxes
Breeding anger or hate
Gossip
Making fun of others in an unkind way
Categorizing (us and them).

Spirit of Oneness,
Help me appreciate the miracle
Of the Internet
Its capacity to join diverse and distant
Human beings in a dialogue about
What we have in common
Where there’s no such thing as “foreign.”

May I use this blessing of interconnection
To heal the earth and the beings on it--
To love, enjoy and expand my consciousness.
Help me envision the day where this link is so strong
No false ideology can sever the bonds of people
Getting to know one another
One-on-one
And changing the world
One relationship at a time.

~~~

 Photo Credit: © Rawpixel.com - Fotolia.com


This completes our 3rd Annual Prayer and Thanksgiving Month on The Radical Virgo. Hope you enjoyed the prayers and articles, both old and new.




Friday, November 27, 2015

Prayer Songs



Post © 2015 by Joyce Mason



Before we wrap up the Third Annual Prayer and Thanksgiving Month on The Radical Virgo, it occurred to me that there are many sung prayers and many musical forms of thanksgiving—in houses of worship or via recordings loved in your car, home or anywhere you want. Singing your prayers is, in many ways, more potent for the synergy of words and music. Here are some of the ones I love best, both traditional and modern. They are Judeo-Christian, the songs I have mostly been exposed to. Enjoy!


Traditional


Amazing Grace – Sung by Chelsea Robinson, first appeared in hymnals in 1779
The only thing I don’t like about this hymn is calling myself a “wretch.” I substitute soul. I recommend expanding and reading the liner notes on YouTube for this scripture-based, all-time fave.

Ave Maria  (Hail, Mary) – Franz Schubert, 1825
There are many versions on YouTube. This one is sung by Andrea Bocelli.

Czech Christmas Mass – Jakub Jan Ryba, 1796
When I was growing up Catholic, liturgical music was seldom as joyful as this upbeat favorite find, which I first heard 20 years ago on my local NPR radio station. It’s among my holiday musical treasures.

Hava Nagila – “Let’s rejoice …be happy … awake … with a happy heart.” Traditional Israeli folk song composed in the 1920’s. (More history here.) What's not to love about such dancing and singing? Here is Neil Diamond singing this Jewish joy song at Ben’s bar mitzvah in one of my favorite movies, Keeping Up with the Steins.
                                                    
Messiah – George Frideric Handel, 1741
This version is sung by the Choir of King's College, Cambridge and accompanied by the Brandenburg Consort.

Theresienmesse (Mass in Bb Major) – Joseph Haydn, 1799
I was introduced to this gem while singing in the Unitarian Universalist choir in the early 1980s. Another heart chakra, joyous (and sometimes raucous) Mass. The end of the Credo always sounds like calliope music to me.

Modern/Pop


The 23rd Psalm (Dedicated to My Mother) – Written by Bobby McFerrin, 1990, sung by Cantus

Written by Irving Berlin, this song is featured in the movie “White Christmas”

He – Jerry Vale, 1973

I Believe – Perry Como, 1953

I Say a Little Prayer for You – Dionne Warwick, 1967

Let There Be Peace on Earth (and Let It Begin with Me) - Jill Jackson Miller and Sy Miller, 1955, sung by the Harlem Boys’ Choir

My Prayer – The Platters, 1956

One Hand, One Heart – Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer, West Side Story, 1961
The song Tony and Maria sing as they fantasize about their wedding.

Sabbath Prayer  – Chaim Topol and Norma Crane, Fiddler on the Roof, 1971

Turn, Turn, Turn – The Byrds, 1965.
This catchy popular tune written by Pete Seeger,  made a bible verse famous even among non-believers—Ecclesiastes 3:1-8—original author, Solomon.

 

Genres


Finally, there are genres of musical prayer that I love more for their type than singling out specific songs. It’s probably obvious by now that I have very eclectic tastes in music and spirituality. Here are some of my favorites categories with examples.

   


  •     Klezmer Music  -  Not all Klezmer music is expressly spiritual, but it is so spirited, even the more secular or non-vocal selections capture and/or ignite the Jewish spirit. Music that makes you happy and want to dance is the most spiritual of all in my book.


Keeping praying—and singing!

~~~

Photo Credit: © highwaystarz – Fotolia.com

Wednesday, November 27, 2013

An Answered Prayer






A dear friend and I have gone to the same manicurist for some time. I was shocked when I phoned recently for an appointment to find out that “Ami” had left the salon where I saw her for years. My friend and I were brokenhearted to lose our connection with her.

The salon owner was eager to hook me up with another manicurist and not to lose me as a customer. Her lips were sealed for any information about Ami, and I was pretty certain she’d claim ignorance of her whereabouts. I didn’t even bother to ask, thinking it was probably impolite to be so obvious about the fact that I’m loyal to my manicurist, not so much to whichever salon she happens to work for. At my next appointment with someone else at the old salon, I heard another customer express her deep disappointment to lose Ami.

I probably should explain: I come from a family of hairdressers, and because of it, I have unusual standards about my relationships with providers of personal services. Changing hairdressers or manicurists is a very big deal for me, and they are part therapist as well as glamorizers to me. Losing those people in my life is tantamount to a divorce. It’s traumatic. (Read more on this topic in my article Bartenders, Beauticians and Baristas.) My reliance on these heroes to fulfill the needs of my Venus-driven astrology chart is a major bond of trust, and the time I spend with them represents some of my few hours of relaxation and letting go in my whirlwind life. They need have to have good energy, as they’re part of something much bigger in my life than a cut, color or pedicure. They put new life into me with along with a coat of nail polish or hair color, and it’s all about the love and vibes that go with it. (My hairdresser and I hug and say we love each other all the time.)

How could I ever find Ami? I didn’t figure I could stand in the middle of town and yell her name and hope she’d run out of one of the dozens of nail salons in our small city.  I assumed she was lost to us.

For some time, I’d been eyeing the nail salon next to our neighborhood Rubio’s restaurant where my husband and I often have dinner or get take-out. That was even before losing Ami. In fact I wondered, given I was so happy with Ami, why this salon seemed to have some sort of curious draw to me. Once I heard about her disappearance, I figured it’d be a good place to explore for someone new since it was “vibing” at me. It’s near home and I eat and shop in the vicinity often.

The other night, I was going to pick up food at Rubio’s. I looked at the salon, peeked in the window and thought to myself that I should check their prices when I came back out from buying dinner.

By then, I was in my exhaustion mode, how I get by early evening after a hard day—so tired, I couldn’t even remember where I parked, much less continue to think about manicures. Standing between the salon and the restaurant, I was trying to get my bearings about my car. Suddenly I realized someone was calling out my name with great enthusiasm. I turned around …

… and it was Ami! I was so excited to see her. We hugged like long lost relatives, and I told her I’d been so sad, thinking I’d lost her forever. The salon that kept standing out in my mind in yellow highlighter is her new place of work.

If you read my blogs often, you probably won’t be surprised that this happened to me … because these things happen to me a lot. It’s because I’m intuitive, and that “thing” that was drawing me to the new nail salon was a message from Spirit. If Ami hadn’t found me first, surely, I’d have followed that pull and found her myself, sooner or later.

This story proves that Spirit is whispering messages to us all the time. It was even hinting at the answer to my prayer before I even knew I was going to have a need. Intuition is Spirit Within. The universe answers our prayers all the time, but sometimes we just aren’t listening or picking up the signals.

So here’s a prayer I wrote for sensory tune-ups:

Eternal Light, help me see your hints, hear your clues and recognize your pulls toward fulfillment of my needs and desires. Remind me often that all prayers are answered, maybe not in the way I expect—and at other times, in ways much bigger and better than I ever imagined. Lead me on the exciting journey of seeing my ability to manifest what I need in the material world. Thank you for the joy of discovering my own creative power.


May you find what you lose and love what you find!

~~~


Photo Credit: © zzzdim - Fotolia.com


Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Prayer for Divine Direction






Lord, take me where You want me to go;

Let me meet who You want me to meet;

Tell me what You want me to say; and

Keep me out of your way.



--Father Mychal Judge, FDNY
(Died 9/11/01)


Photo Credit: © stocklady - Fotolia.com 

This is a Prayer and Thanksgiving Month post.