I have been reflecting on the end of this coming year and it has been full of ups and downs. If I could think of any word that fully describes this year it would be observation. I feel that most of this year has been in deep observation of my self and how I participate in my own life.
I was listening to a wise man give a talk and he said that we all come to this earth with a God mandated purpose that we agreed upon before taking our physical body and because the earth is the way that it is - we can easily have our purpose diverted. Perhaps our purpose is sidetracked by people or circumstances yet it is up to us to re-remember somewhere along the way what it is that we came to do.
I have spent a great deal of this year looking at my diversions and realizing that they were a necessary step in me becoming even more committed to my soul and living a full, joyous life.
This year I decided to meditate the new year in using a practice I learned about 10 years ago called Vipassana. Vipassana translates to mean "to see things as they truly are..." People from all faiths have learned the practice of Vipassana. It is an ancient meditation practice that teaches you to observe the various sensations in your body to the point that you are deeply aware of tiny hairs moving on your body. Somehow in this awareness you began to understand the human condition of desire and aversion - the belief is that most of our suffering comes from these places. Vipassana is practiced globally and is accessible to all people. If you would like more information the website is www.dhamma.org Retreats sometimes fill quickly depending on the time of year and location.
This will be my last post until the new year but I am grateful to all of my subscribers and readers who have followed SistahGoddess. Next year proves to be a year full of change - I can feel this already. I am a "daughter of the bones" and according to the Dagara community in Africa the year 2009 is the element of mineral. Minerals are the rocks which they refer to as being the bones of the earth - the bones hold the stories. This is what Some' says about the mineral year and those born in a mineral year:
Mineral is about communicating, the ability to translate things, the ability to converse. It has a lot to do with social connections. A lot of Mineral people are relatively talkative. In the indigenous world they are the Storytellers, the Great Communicators. Mineral is also something that we must see in terms of the conveying of energy, to convey energy that comes through you on its way somewhere else. This is why any person who is a Mineral person is supposed to be running energy, whether it is through your hands or your body or whatever. Mineral people are also recognized as Stone people—not that they’re stone but because the stone is seen as the one that stores information. They say if you want to know the story of the earth, listen to the stones or listen to the rocks. Every time you go to someone’s house and you see all these rocks, that person has something to do with mineral. This is the closest way to express that. It is interesting that in many communities in Africa, your birth certificate is a stone. Of course the stone does not record the date of birth. It records why you were born. Maybe that’s why we don’t bother with people’s birthdays. The reason I'm bringing it out is because in the computer systems they use stones. They crystalize stone to the point where it can forward or manipulate or store information. This is to say that it’s not all that disconnected from modern facts and reality.
As we leave this year of nature we step now to the bone mother and sit at her feet and hear her stories. Some of us will take her stories and learn a new way and others will leave their old stories with her and re-remember who they are...
Prayer for the New Year
Giving thanks and deep gratitude to the Creator
Giving thanks and deep gratitude to the Spirit World (Orishas,deities,and helpers of God)
Giving thanks and deep gratitude to the Ancestors who are fortunate enough to sit at the feet of the Creator
Giving thanks to the Animals guides - those who walk the land, those who fly, those who burrow deep in the ground, those who swim and those who slither
Giving thanks to our earth helpers, our families, friends and kind strangers
Giving thanks to our own spirit - a powerful microcosm of all those beings that have come before us,
all those beings that will surely come after us
all those beings that stand to the left of us,
all those beings that stand to the right of us,
all those beings that stand above us,
all those beings that stand below us,
and all those beings that stand in through and around us
here for our best benefit
guiding us,
helping us to heal,
helping us to see clearly,
helping us love,
helping us to live with peace in our hearts,
We give thanks for the presence of Spirit in our lives
and we move forward, strong and true to our purpose.
We are grateful for all that we have and
all that we have lost because it made us stronger.
We ask that the Spiritworld continue to bless us,
continue to guide us,
continue to help us heal and grow.
We ask that we continue to receive the blessings
of good health, prosperity, love and friendship.
We ask that we be protected from any and all forms of negativity,
bad luck and illness.
We ask that we continue to be a clear vessel for the goodness,
strength, love and joy the Creator made us for...
We give thanks.
Medasi (thank you)
Ashe (and let it be so)
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Sistah C
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