This week I heard about an ancient ritual that gave me a noticeable, albeit tiny, glimmer of a distant recognition. It was the practice of saying a prayer into a stone, or a bone, and then binding the words using a cloth. These prayers were a way to make affirmations to oneself and make a commitment to mother earth and oneself by binding the words with cloth thus securing them into something everlasting: a stone or bone. I was on a course run by Angharad Wynne with Animate Earth and this practice was being described by Carolyn Hillyer as something she, and many people who work alongside her, have practiced over many years.

It got me thinking, as I am currently trying to work out, what would be my prayer of this moment? What is it that I would like to commit to the earth, and to myself? I have always struggled with being specific and committing to precise words. I prefer to waffle and often suggest that words don’t fit, which in truth, they frequently don’t, but also they can be very powerful when right words are chosen. Really, I suppose the actual words don’t matter so much as the sentiment and feeling that is associated with the chosen words; now, feelings I can connect and relate to. So then, I need to deeply connect to my truth and what it is, specifically, that I would like bind into being. I feel like this will take some time….

Of all the many things I do, love and am passionate about, narrowing those passions down to one, or even a few, specific commitments is incredibly challenging for me. However, I do think it is within that focused specificity that my own answers lie. That if I can commit to narrowing down my energy, I will hone my focus and then better commit myself to the chosen task or tasks. I wonder what it is I am avoiding by not doing this as it is something I have known I should do for a long time. In fact I think I may have chosen words before, possibly I will find them if I look back at all my blogs, but both time and I have changed since I wrote anything back then and I need to make a new binding prayer for this new person I have become and these new circumstances I now find myself in.

One of my difficulties that I recognise is the need to get it right. To choose the most perfect words that encapsulate everything I believe in and stand for. This perfectionism is one of my biggest stumbling blocks and one that often holds me back despite frequent attempts to let this part of me go and move on. “I don’t care if I get it right anymore” I tell myself, but it just isn’t quite the whole truth. There is some truth in it and I am much more comfortable with mistakes and errors; they are all just signposts for learning anyway. Yet I recognise the block is preventing me from stepping fully into my own freedom. My own knowing and accepting myself. It sounds as though it should be so easy: to let go of that which no longer serves you. I haven’t found it easy at all. Perfectionism is not serving me and I thought I had let it go, but still it lingers. Holding its lasting grip on my ego. Or perhaps it is my ego that’s clinging to the perfectionism for fear of the freedom that may come from its release. Either way, I still see it lurking in my shadow.

So my prayer for my stone, today is ‘I commit to heal my connection to all that is and to help others connect to what matters to them’.
Tomorrow I may find another prayer that may be more fitting for another day. But for today, this one, may not be perfect, but is just fine and I feel joyful and grateful for sealing it in stone.