It was iguana nesting season on Cozumel when we visited the archeological site. The guide warned us not to let our feet stray too near the holes along the side of the rocky pathway. Momma iguanas are hyper-protective and practice preemptive strikes on whatever looks like a threat to her vulnerable eggs. This gave us a healthy respect for the prehistoric-looking creature.
When Samantha and I returned to the temple area several days later, we aimed at giving our offerings to Ix Chel, Maya goddess of the moon, women, herbs and water. Samantha hoped to become pregnant soon and I brought offerings from a client also seeking fertility blessings. Samantha had previously asked a guide where the best spot might be to make such an offering to Ix Chel. Kana Nah, a moderate sized pyramid, was the suggestion.
We walked the rocky pathway, still punctuated along the edge with holes the diameter of small cantaloupes. We carefully sidestepped them.
As we approached the temple we anticipated scrambling to the top to place our offerings. But first we encountered a group of tourist at the foot of the pyramid. We asked the visitors to take our photo. As we chatted, a large snake, 5-6 feet long, fell (or jumped?) out of the tree near us. After catching our breath after that surprise, the others left us alone at the pyramid.
At that time the temple was not yet roped off from explorations. It was somewhat irregular in places, where the rocks had loosened from its sturdy structure. As we looked for a good place to ascend without damaging the temple or ourselves, we saw that we weren’t really alone. Two gigantic iguanas were about two-thirds of the way up the pyramid, eyeing us and not backing away at all as we approached. They were about 3 feet long. Very dragon- like. Probably guarding giant eggs.
Samantha and I looked at the iguanas, looked back at each other.
I said, “Let’s just throw our offerings upward and sing our prayers from here.”
She readily agreed. “It’s OK, iguanas. Your eggs are safe.”
So we sang our prayers en place and threw our offering towards the pinnacle. After standing in a meditative moment for some time, we saw more visitors arriving and climbed back down to earth.
We knew that Ix Chel had heard our prayers. Before we left the temple area, a gentle sprinkle of rain fell on us for just a moment, signaling her favor.
And both supplicants were soon guarding their own nests, full of offspring.
--Terra Rafael
Showing posts with label prayer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prayer. Show all posts
01 January 2010
26 November 2008
My Adventrues with Prayer - Part II
Studying Maya Healing work with Rosita Arvigo and Miss Beatrice Waight made prayer more specific & essential to my healing work. Miss Beatrice taught me to pray again, as I had as a child, “with all my heart, with all my heart”. My blessings for those I cared for became more focused through prayer, using words to bring it into form.
Miss Beatrice taught me to pray to Archangel Rafael, the patron saint of healers, happy marriages, and casting out of demons. As taught by Rosita & Miss Beatrice, I always pray for my clients and students and myself, to bring the highest good to us all. I invoke many faces of God, which I see as just different energies or languages which are accessible to different people at different times, asking the Higher Power to heal through me and guide me.
In the name of the Father, the Mother & the Holy Child, the Nine Mayan Spirits, Shri Krishna, Mahalaksmi, and Archangel Rafael
I am the one, calling upon you, asking you to heal ____________, of her physical & spiritual disease.
I ask you this with all my heart, with all my heart, and I ask that the spirit of the rose assist with this healing.
While at Cozumel, the island of Maya women’s spirituality, I got to pray at the Temple of Ix Chel, goddess of the moon, She who lives in Sacred Waters, fertility and healing goddess, goddess of weaving. An iguana did a fertility dance for me at one temple—whether to entice me or scare me away from eggs I’m not sure. We shared the traditional prayer of the Primicia ceremony with all the participants in the Maya Abdominal Massage conference there at the central temple plaza. That night we had a sudden rain—an indication she received our prayers. The next day we did the full ceremony and buried our offerings in the sand at the beach. Then we did a healing spiritual bath with flowers in the ocean waves. We played and splashed in Her Sacred Waters – a prayer of laughter.
A few days later I was lucky enough to return to the temple with my friend, Samantha, & her teenaged daughter. Samantha had been told the best place to make offering to Ix Chel, so we went there to offer our personal prayers. When we got to the small pyramid, we found it guarded by two very large iguanas who were about half way up the temple—it was intimidating to look up at them, especially since it was the fierce time of nesting. We started climbing up and the one closest to us went inside the rocks of the temple. When we asked if we could go up further we received a “no” , so we did our prayers where we were, sang a song, and then threw our offerings up to the top of the temple. A few minutes after we descended, both of us felt the answering wetness of a few drops of Her sacred rain, telling us she had again received our prayers & offerings.
Recently I read the book Illuminata by Marianne Williamson. In it she gives examples of prayers for many situations and talks about their use throughout our lives. I’ve been finding that praying more often, extemporaneously, really has been very helpful. I was inspired to pray for guidance when my teenaged daughter came home very late after her curfew, in a state that mothers don’t want to see their daughters. It helped me avoid taking it personally, getting overly emotional and allowed me to focus on her problem, rather than on an emotional reaction on my part. I believe that this helped her learn rather than just react too.
Attending the Columbine Unity church I became part of the Prayer Partner team, partly to practice prayer more regularly. Our training gave us many different possibilities in how to pray with others. Each month I'd take a turn after service to be available to pray with people wanting to share their burdens or joys. I also had a list of nine congregants who I called each month to leave them a prayer, or if I was lucky to reach them in person, to pray with them. This steady practice enriched my ability to find prayers in my heart to share with others. It reminded me how we can support each other--if we don't remember the highest at this moment we can call on others to help lift us up. It was a great blessing.
I hope you will try praying more freely in your life. Let me know how it works for you. Prayer is a way to relate more personally to our chosen deity, to give thanks, ask for help for ourselves and others, and to bless. With prayer we acknowledge that we are children of God/dess and that God/dess wants the best for us, just as parents do, even if we ourselves don’t know what is best.
--by Terra Rafael
If you’d like to have a healing session with Terra using her unique combination of Ayurveda, Maya healing, massage, reiki, flower essences & women’s knowledge call her at 720.628.5015 or email at wisewomanhood@gmail.com.
Miss Beatrice taught me to pray to Archangel Rafael, the patron saint of healers, happy marriages, and casting out of demons. As taught by Rosita & Miss Beatrice, I always pray for my clients and students and myself, to bring the highest good to us all. I invoke many faces of God, which I see as just different energies or languages which are accessible to different people at different times, asking the Higher Power to heal through me and guide me.
In the name of the Father, the Mother & the Holy Child, the Nine Mayan Spirits, Shri Krishna, Mahalaksmi, and Archangel Rafael
I am the one, calling upon you, asking you to heal ____________, of her physical & spiritual disease.
I ask you this with all my heart, with all my heart, and I ask that the spirit of the rose assist with this healing.
While at Cozumel, the island of Maya women’s spirituality, I got to pray at the Temple of Ix Chel, goddess of the moon, She who lives in Sacred Waters, fertility and healing goddess, goddess of weaving. An iguana did a fertility dance for me at one temple—whether to entice me or scare me away from eggs I’m not sure. We shared the traditional prayer of the Primicia ceremony with all the participants in the Maya Abdominal Massage conference there at the central temple plaza. That night we had a sudden rain—an indication she received our prayers. The next day we did the full ceremony and buried our offerings in the sand at the beach. Then we did a healing spiritual bath with flowers in the ocean waves. We played and splashed in Her Sacred Waters – a prayer of laughter.
A few days later I was lucky enough to return to the temple with my friend, Samantha, & her teenaged daughter. Samantha had been told the best place to make offering to Ix Chel, so we went there to offer our personal prayers. When we got to the small pyramid, we found it guarded by two very large iguanas who were about half way up the temple—it was intimidating to look up at them, especially since it was the fierce time of nesting. We started climbing up and the one closest to us went inside the rocks of the temple. When we asked if we could go up further we received a “no” , so we did our prayers where we were, sang a song, and then threw our offerings up to the top of the temple. A few minutes after we descended, both of us felt the answering wetness of a few drops of Her sacred rain, telling us she had again received our prayers & offerings.
Recently I read the book Illuminata by Marianne Williamson. In it she gives examples of prayers for many situations and talks about their use throughout our lives. I’ve been finding that praying more often, extemporaneously, really has been very helpful. I was inspired to pray for guidance when my teenaged daughter came home very late after her curfew, in a state that mothers don’t want to see their daughters. It helped me avoid taking it personally, getting overly emotional and allowed me to focus on her problem, rather than on an emotional reaction on my part. I believe that this helped her learn rather than just react too.
Attending the Columbine Unity church I became part of the Prayer Partner team, partly to practice prayer more regularly. Our training gave us many different possibilities in how to pray with others. Each month I'd take a turn after service to be available to pray with people wanting to share their burdens or joys. I also had a list of nine congregants who I called each month to leave them a prayer, or if I was lucky to reach them in person, to pray with them. This steady practice enriched my ability to find prayers in my heart to share with others. It reminded me how we can support each other--if we don't remember the highest at this moment we can call on others to help lift us up. It was a great blessing.
I hope you will try praying more freely in your life. Let me know how it works for you. Prayer is a way to relate more personally to our chosen deity, to give thanks, ask for help for ourselves and others, and to bless. With prayer we acknowledge that we are children of God/dess and that God/dess wants the best for us, just as parents do, even if we ourselves don’t know what is best.
--by Terra Rafael
If you’d like to have a healing session with Terra using her unique combination of Ayurveda, Maya healing, massage, reiki, flower essences & women’s knowledge call her at 720.628.5015 or email at wisewomanhood@gmail.com.
25 November 2008
My Adventures with Prayer - Part I
If meditation is opening to the highest power, then prayer is the speaking through that opening-- with praise, requests and thanksgiving. We connect and invoke the power of creation to bring forth goodness into the world. The highest prayer is for Divine Will to unfold through us. Our ishta deva or chosen deity could be named or unnamed, Mother Nature or Jehovah, Krishna or the Great Spirit. For me these are all names for the same Power & Love, just as we are all separate impulses of the same Oneness. Maybe I am a bit like the character in “The Life of Pi” who worships as a Muslim, Hindu & Christian with equal fervor and belief, even though his various teachers all saw it as impossible and improper to do so.
I remember praying as a child before I went to sleep each night: “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take.” It was a little scary to me to contemplate that I might die before I wake every night just before sleeping. I have amended that prayer over the years—“Now I lay me down to sleep, I ask you Mother, grant me peace. Fold me to your loving breast and nourish me with healing rest.”
As I grew I learned the prayers of my Lutheran heritage—my favorite was the Lord’s prayer. “Our Father Who art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil for Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory Forever & Ever. Amen.”
Then as my matrix of faith shifted from God the Father to God the Mother I learned to invoke the Goddess in ritual, but there wasn’t much emphasis on prayer. Ritual was where intention was set into motion, not by asking or giving thanks.
As a Sufi belly dancer, I learned to pray the Muslim prayers. First we would do ritual ablutions to wash away the world, then the prayer, facing Mecca. We would say our prayers in Arabic, between a whisper and normal voice, as we did our movements of letting go, and supplication. We also chanted, danced, whirled and studied texts. The power of praying at set times each day was great—to stop whatever you are doing, to turn towards Allah, Allah hu Akbar! God is great! I received the vision of the wave of Muslim prayers moving around the world as time passed around the globe, a constant remembering of the Only One God.
When I began the path of Siddha Yoga, meditation, chanting and selfless service became important spiritual practices to feed my soul. But prayer was not a practice we were taught per se.
Ayurvedic studies included vedic mantras, the invoking of divine power through sacred Sanskrit syllables. It is prayer in a very pure form. Once I was treating a woman with a painful tailbone, hurt over a month before in a fall from her horse. Even her experienced chiropractor husband couldn’t replace it. I was inspired to chant the Sanskrit healing mantra “Tryambakam Yajamahe, Sugandhim Pusti Vardanam, Urva Rukamiva Bandhanan, Myrtyor Mukshiya Mamritat”. This mantra protects as well as heals. It calls upon Lord Shiva, who was the first to utter it to transmute poison he had swallowed to save the world. In ayurveda school we had chanted this mantra thousands of times and it’s also part of the Siddha Yoga tradition in the ancient vedic Rudrum chant, so I was empowered to use it. As I gave her reiki, holding my hand gently over her tailbone, I chanted. Suddenly I felt the tailbone move of its own volition. She reported that it felt better and that the pain was gone from then on.
In giving Reiki we invoke healing energy to course through us, asking that it bring the highest possible good to both the receiver and the practitioner. It is a prayer in action.
-By Terra Rafael
Watch for Part II to hear more about my Adventures with Prayer.
If you’d like to have a healing session with Terra using her unique combination of Ayurveda, Maya healing, massage, reiki, flower essences & women’s knowledge call her at 720.628.5015 or email at wisewomanhood@gmail.com.
I remember praying as a child before I went to sleep each night: “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray Thee, Lord, my soul to take.” It was a little scary to me to contemplate that I might die before I wake every night just before sleeping. I have amended that prayer over the years—“Now I lay me down to sleep, I ask you Mother, grant me peace. Fold me to your loving breast and nourish me with healing rest.”
As I grew I learned the prayers of my Lutheran heritage—my favorite was the Lord’s prayer. “Our Father Who art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil for Thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory Forever & Ever. Amen.”
Then as my matrix of faith shifted from God the Father to God the Mother I learned to invoke the Goddess in ritual, but there wasn’t much emphasis on prayer. Ritual was where intention was set into motion, not by asking or giving thanks.
As a Sufi belly dancer, I learned to pray the Muslim prayers. First we would do ritual ablutions to wash away the world, then the prayer, facing Mecca. We would say our prayers in Arabic, between a whisper and normal voice, as we did our movements of letting go, and supplication. We also chanted, danced, whirled and studied texts. The power of praying at set times each day was great—to stop whatever you are doing, to turn towards Allah, Allah hu Akbar! God is great! I received the vision of the wave of Muslim prayers moving around the world as time passed around the globe, a constant remembering of the Only One God.
When I began the path of Siddha Yoga, meditation, chanting and selfless service became important spiritual practices to feed my soul. But prayer was not a practice we were taught per se.
Ayurvedic studies included vedic mantras, the invoking of divine power through sacred Sanskrit syllables. It is prayer in a very pure form. Once I was treating a woman with a painful tailbone, hurt over a month before in a fall from her horse. Even her experienced chiropractor husband couldn’t replace it. I was inspired to chant the Sanskrit healing mantra “Tryambakam Yajamahe, Sugandhim Pusti Vardanam, Urva Rukamiva Bandhanan, Myrtyor Mukshiya Mamritat”. This mantra protects as well as heals. It calls upon Lord Shiva, who was the first to utter it to transmute poison he had swallowed to save the world. In ayurveda school we had chanted this mantra thousands of times and it’s also part of the Siddha Yoga tradition in the ancient vedic Rudrum chant, so I was empowered to use it. As I gave her reiki, holding my hand gently over her tailbone, I chanted. Suddenly I felt the tailbone move of its own volition. She reported that it felt better and that the pain was gone from then on.
In giving Reiki we invoke healing energy to course through us, asking that it bring the highest possible good to both the receiver and the practitioner. It is a prayer in action.
-By Terra Rafael
Watch for Part II to hear more about my Adventures with Prayer.
If you’d like to have a healing session with Terra using her unique combination of Ayurveda, Maya healing, massage, reiki, flower essences & women’s knowledge call her at 720.628.5015 or email at wisewomanhood@gmail.com.
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