thank you

Mother of Life, for all the ways you hold us and sustain us, I thank you.
For every breath you breathe through me, I offer my gratitude.
May I take from you no more than I need, and may I give back to you all I am.
Creator, awaken me from patterns of scarcity, habits of selfishness, traps of ego,
So I can add my voice to the halleluiah of the whole and be a channel of your wisdom.
All I want is to live in service to the rapture of existence.
To sing with frogs and wrens, in harmony with your hymn. 

Let your light align my path with your law, 
let it expand this blessing to the land and to all our relations 
and infuse the future for generations to come: Mother of Life,
Let me be a song that reaches everyone who feels alone and lost.
Let me be a vessel of the medicines that awaken awe in us, 
And make us into lanterns in the dark, until we know
How to be one again in the garden beyond thought.

Help us surrender our attachment to stories of separation and extraction 
And meet again in the glory of praising the God who is Water and Soil, Fern and Moss.
Help us become clear channels of the music that ends our oldest arguments. 
Mother of Life, help us to let go of our hunger for answers, 
And be content knowing that as we raise our voices in praise,
We recover what it means to be human. 

Help us stay curious and humble; keep us gentle and small, 
Mother of life, all I really want is to be a swarm of bees that hums your name,
A grain of sand made smooth by your waves.
I will give everything up to be the bell on your ankle, 
The dust under your feet, the cup that holds the nectar 
That softens us all, mother. Soften us,
For we are only a thread in the tapestry of the world,
Even as we grow into the vastness of your call.
Even as we dance on this jagged edge 
Between forgetting and remembering who we are,
Let our compassion be unconditional. 

Let us give tenderness to every hurting part,
Let us befriend everything inside us, 
The messy and the ugly, the heavy and the hard
Knowing each feeling is a teacher and a message 
And a bridge between our broken hearts.

Mother of Life, center us in unstoppable kindness
For ourselves and each other no matter what.
Let us open our arms to the refugees inside us
As our world unravels and rulers in shadows spread hatred
Let us affirm our most indomitable love

Let us accept each grief and rage and never judge
Ourselves or each other, as the emotions we suppressed
Become the storms that wash us, until our tears 
Become the rain that ends the war, 
And our eyes are as clear as they were before
We were taught to fear and fight and hoard,
And the flames in us yield to the flowers
And the weapons in us become clouds
And we remember how inseparable 
We are from the heaven of here and now.

As we celebrate the ecstasy of collaboration with nature,
As we see ourselves in the enemy and in the stranger,
As we recognize animals as allies and plants as elders,
As we bow together with all who share this precious air,
Let us outgrow the lies and the shame we inherited,
Let us shed our conditioning, put down our burdens.
Let us see through every false, isolating narrative
And drop the addictions that no longer serve us.

Mother of life, open us to radical forgiveness
As we navigate the initiatory fires of this journey
From the myth of heroism to the bliss of kinship.
Teach us to mend the vows the traumas of our past have broken.
To find peace through presence, freedom in devotion,
And fulfillment in the realization of the purpose
For which we were born.

Mother of life, return us to our original duty—
We are here to awaken and steward creation.
Here to foster generosity, nurture connection.
Honour all elders and care for all children, 
In reciprocity with the more than human, 

As we architect a temple of belonging 
That welcomes all genders, ethnicities, races and religions.
Ground us in the sacred knowledge that all are equal and all are one,
As we release the heat and weight of the illusion,
And reclaim the sweet embrace of communion,  
And affirm our boldest faith in the miracle that cannot be proven,
But only felt in the body that dares dissolve in your beauty,

Even when the winds of change are so strong 
They would knock us down if we stood alone 
Let us go forth hand in hand and arm in arm 
Until we become a sunrise that illuminates
Every crack in our world with the gold 
Of soul and shine a way through, 
And we are back where we started 
And there is nothing left to say 
But thank you.