The throat, located just one energy center north of the heart and one jump south of the mind, is in a precarious position in the body. A short journey from heart to mind and back down to the throat takes mere seconds, but many detours are taken en route. For today's spiritually traumatized, broken-hearted and soul-wounded, the process of revealing what rests on the heart can be a paralyzing challenge. To clear the path of negative imprint, one must declare the intention to speak to what matters most and set about the task of discerning what that is. One can make a choice now to stand up to the fears that mangle the truth into expressions more palatable for others, cause explosions of rage, freezing up, or cut-and-run behavior. This book takes aim at strengthening the confident voice of the individual while emphasizing relational communications. Each prayer concentrates on an aspect of healing the voice: Honoring Clarity, Humility, Advocacy, Sorrow, Fear, Rage, and Protection.
The book includes:
Prayers of Honoring was written for sharing from the heart in community. In western culture, we keep many things to ourselves. Prayer, among other things, has become a private practice for those of us who don't congregate for spiritual purposes. Our language for connection to something greater than ourselves has become truncated to basic iterations and generalized affirmations. These prayers were written to honor the things which are easy to celebrate, and also those things which require more practice. It was written as a reminder of the process of honoring, which is to show high respect. It's my thought that respect and reverence have all but gone missing from western culture. To cultivate these things through the rhythm of prayer is to demonstrate devotion to the unfathomable energies which suspend us between the divine energies of Earth and Sky every day and night. It's my belief that creating our own family practice of prayerfulness brings us closer as we travel forth.
Prayers of Honoring has supported my personal practice and allowed me to ground in an entirely new way. - Trace K.
Prayers of Honoring was a gift from a fellow yoga teacher in Montana. I've carried it with me around the world and continually seek comfort in the beautiful words and phrases. I am so grateful that you are sharing your heart song, it's beautiful. - Emily S.
Love Prayers of Honoring. As I entered my shamanic path, these prayers really helped with all of the energy I was calling in, and the energy I was letting go. I felt it was one of my strongest tools, especially when my closest cousin left earth side during it all. Thank you. - Leigh
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 intimately 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 relief 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 opposite. 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 map 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 relief 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:
Prayers of Honoring is the original book in Pixie Lighthorse's prayer trilogy. It offers a way to connect to a power greater than ourselves-to the Source of Life As You Understand It-on our own terms and following our own intuition. With salt and with sweetness, Pixie guides us along gently through word-offerings designed to heal, orient, and fortify. These prayers give sacredness back to everyone, no matter our orientation to the divine, and encourage us to develop a healing intimacy with the natural world.Organized around the four directions, each direction symbolizes a season, an element, and a set of properties and potentials. The book has a circular structure that mirrors life itself, and that encourages us to return, over and over, as the seasons of our own life change, to find new wisdom and perspective.Prayers of Honoring has traveled around the globe and fallen into the hands of many courageous and outspoken individuals and leaders. It has been assimilated into yoga teacher training curriculums and healing circles, read at workshops, demonstrations, and music festivals.-28 prayers, 7 for each cardinal direction.-Space to the left of each prayer to journal, collage, and draw-Journal prompts at the end of each section and space to write-Foreword by Annie Adamson, founder of Yoga Union