Prayers of Honoring Grief is the third book of prayers by Earth
Medicine Educator, Pixie Lighthorse. Prayer is a means of
connecting to our elevated natures during times of transition. It
is during hardship that we can look both deep within and to the
cosmic outskirts for guidance and wisdom. Prayer can connect us
immediately and ly to what we feel, what is current, and
where the challenges are. It allows us the secure and quiet space
to be able to honor what we value. To honor is to acknowledge and
celebrate. While it may feel counter-intuitive to celebrate pain,
what you can celebrate is your ability to access your feelings.
Your feelings function is a sense that is like a muscle, asking
you to consciously exercise it. The brain is a complex, plastic
organ, and it is becoming ever more apparent how it can become
hyper-vigilant, triggered by trauma, confused, disorganized, and
overwhelmed. To thicken the plot even more, our nervous systems
are operating at warp speed, and we are not yet fully equipped
with the tools being modern requires in order to navigate through
the obstacles of life. Numbing out feelings due to overwhelm
turns them off, and we become accustomed to moving through the
world unconsciously, detached, and dissociated from them. As
natural feelings of suffering and pain are acknowledged, your
body will rejoice at its ability to be in the world as it is. The
body is a magnificent thing. When its systems come back online,
it can bring a feeling of as it begins again to do its job
as nature intended. The task is to create space for the deeper
processes to take place. We are routinely cultured to “get on
with it” from an early age, instructed not to waste time
lingering in negativity. When the alternative is avoidance we
actually become more fragile, though we are taught to believe the
site. Grief remains in the systems of the body, informing our
lives in subtle and subversive ways in the form of fear, anxiety,
and depression. The whole of our lives changes when grief is
stored away silently. It directs our decisions, impairs or
inflates our willingness to take risks, and continues to have its
way with us. Toxic, amputated, dishonest, denied, neglected,
mutated grief causes disharmony in the body and spirit. Grief
doesn’t bite. It is a natural and normal way of dispersing energy
through the body’s systems. It is not dangerous unless it is
acted out in harmful and neglectful ways. Our thoughts around
what grief should look like are the most surprising thing of all.
How could it possibly be harmful to be honest about how one is
feeling? It is simply the confession of what it was really like
then and what it feels like now. It is not the plague of darkness
it is made out to be. What a ! Prayers of Honoring Grief
walks the reader around the compass of life through 28
distinctive modes of suffering to help the reader gracefully
navigate the inner territory of what life is really like, rather
than what it is idealized to be. The book includes:
* Foreword written by Jennifer Houston
* Suggestions for how to use the book as a personal companion for
healing grief as well as ways to bring it into your classes and
curriculum
* An introduction to each of the Four Directions and properties
associated with grief
* 28 prayers, 7 for each of the Four Directions
* Blank pages on the left side of each prayer for note-taking,
collaging, and making the book your own
* One page of journal questions for each section
* Lined pages at the end of each section for your
thoughts, personal prayers, and notes about your own spiritual
awakenings