Echoes in a Hollow Space

Random quote of the day:

“Silence can be prayer. Rage can be prayer. It’s truth. It’s all prayer. When we are talking to something that the rest of the world may not be seeing right that minute and we’re talking from the deepest part of our heart, we’re trying to tell the truth. That’s prayer.”

—Anne Lamott, “Soul to Soul2: Asking Life’s Big Questions,” Oprah Winfrey’s Super Soul Sunday

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Orville and Wilbur, Katy Perry, or the Avengers. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:

“God can handle honest, and prayer begins an honest conversation.”

—Anne Lamott, Help, Thanks, Wow

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Lucy and Ethel, Justin Bieber, or the Kardashian Klan. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:

“Prayer is not asking for what you think you want, but asking to be changed in ways you can’t imagine.”

—Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith

 

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Lucy and Ethel, Justin Bieber, or the Kardashian Klan. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

 

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Random quote of the day:

“I have been driven many times upon my knees by the overwhelming conviction that I had nowhere else to go.”

—Abraham Lincoln, quoted by Noah Brooks, Harper’s Monthly, July 1865

 

Disclaimer:  The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

What are prayer sticks? A way of making a prayer manifest in physical form, an offering to the gods and spirits in hope they will please them and persuade them to grant your prayer.

There are many ways to make prayer sticks, many traditions, including fake ones. If you type prayer sticks into Google, you'll see what I mean. They aren't strictly an American Indian tradition, but exist in many forms in many cultures. The thing is: one tradition will have you plant them in the earth to soak up the earth's magic; another will tell you they must hang in trees and never touch the earth or the magic is void. I suspect the "truth" is more along the lines of "as you think, so shall it be."

The way I was taught is this: first, get yourself a stick. Now, some traditions say it has to be a stick gathered from a certain kind of tree (the kind of tree varying depending on who you're talking to), stripped of its bark and sanded; others say leave the bark on; still others say the stick itself is less important than the intent put into it. A piece of wooden dowling will do if you do not have a tree handy to harvest switches from. So, I got me some wooden dowling. Second, on the top part of the stick you paint or write your prayer in some kind of permanent medium. Next, you cover up the prayer with bright cloth or leather and bind it with string or leather thongs. I have a special piece of batik cloth which a soldier brought back from Vietnam for his mother. She gave it to my mother, who gave it to me. I use it for all my ceremonial art pieces. Then you decorate the cloth—with things of a more natural bent, not plastic. In my case, I used shells, bells, tile beads, shell buttons (some dyed blue, some natural), bone beads, ribbons, and feathers. Feathers are very, very important. Almost every tradition I've read of speaks of feathers. They help the prayer fly up to the gods, you see. After all this—in the way I was taught—you find a secluded place where you can plant your stick in the ground, somewhere where it's not likely to be disturbed because if someone touches it, the magic all goes away! You visit the stick every day at sunset or sunrise for ten days, and reiterate the prayer inked on it. After ten days it becomes just another decorated stick and you can pluck it from the ground again and do whatever you like with it. I placed mine on display in my room, and they have journeyed around with me now from place to place to place to place.



And no, I will not say what the prayers were for. I have a superstition of my own, that telling the prayer will make the magic all disappear. In fact, I'm only totally sure what one of those prayers was for (both were done many years ago). I also have a superstition about unwrapping the stick and peaking at the prayer. See above about magic disappearing. The one I'm sure of came true, so the stick did the trick. I suspect I know what the other one was, but I'm not entirely sure, and if it was what I think, then the gods found my prayer stick and me wanting. The prayer did not come true. No harm, no foul. Prayers sticks are about asking, not about receiving.

I did a lot of asking back in the day, back in that day.

( This post is really about cultural appropriation. )

Random quote of the day:


"Pray to catch the bus, then run as fast as you can."

—Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way





( Illustrated version. )

Got my hair cut yesterday--shoulder length, asymetrical layers, bangs. Really cute. Lots of product used by my salonista when I mentioned I was going to Carl's art thingie last night. Looked cute, but I'll never get it to look like that again. I woke up with a most amusing case of bed head this morning. I resembled a picket fence.

Carl's art thingie was quite successful. He sold all five pieces by the end of the evening. He'd actually sold four before the artists' reception, so the gallery owner asked if he could bring any more to the reception. He'd done two other pieces and brought them in, so he could (fingers crossed) wind up with a total of seven sales. That would be a real groovy thing as he's taking a chance and sailing away from the safe life for the art life. Bon voyage, amigo!

And tomorrow my friend goes in for the final surgery to have the artificial connectagozoids removed and his real connectagazoids stitched back together. He wound up having two emergency surgeries and a long recovery to get to this place. He's looking and feeling great, so I can only hope he's as strong as his doctors say, and that the surgery goes as well as they hope. Good luck, buddy.