Prayer and Meditation - the Art of Asking and Receiving

Throughout this year, The Goddess House has been offering meditations on Monday evenings.   These meditations are aimed at being non-secular with subtle metaphysical themes (ie, chakras and auric bodies), and sometimes use the repetition of mantras or chants.   As such, this article about meditation by Madisyn Taylor of Daily Om seems most appropriate to share.

 

 

Meditation and prayer can offer us different experiences

and both can be powerful tools.

Prayer and meditation are similar practices in that they both offer us a connection to the divine, but they also differ from one another in significant ways. Put simply, prayer is when we ask the universe for something, and meditation is when we listen. When we pray, we use language to express our innermost thoughts and feelings to a higher power.

 

Sometimes, we plumb the depths within ourselves and allow whatever comes to the surface to flow out in our prayer. At other times, we pray words that were written by someone else but that express what we want to say. Prayer is reaching out to the universe with questions, pleas for help, gratitude, and praise.

 

Meditation, on the other hand, has a silent quality that honours the art of receptivity. When we meditate, we cease movement and allow the activity of our minds and hearts to go on without us in a sense. Eventually, we fall into a deep silence, a place that underlies all the noise and fray of daily human existence. In this place, it becomes possible for us to hear the universe as it speaks for itself, responds to our questions, or sits with us in its silent way.

 

Both prayer and meditation are indispensable tools for navigating our relationship with the universe and with ourselves. They are also natural complements to one another, and one makes way for the other just as the crest of a wave gives way to its hollow. If we tend to do only one or the other, prayer or meditation, we may find that we are out of balance, and we might benefit from exploring the missing form of communication.

 

There are times when we need to reach out and express ourselves, fully exorcising our insides, and times when we are empty, ready to rest in quiet receiving. When we allow ourselves to do both, we begin to have a true conversation with the universe.

 

A variety of devotional and prayer beads are available through LunaNoire Creations, our Etsy store, such as these St Brighid's beads (right) which are made from fancy jasper with Celtic spacer beads (reflecting St Brighid's Irish origins) and is finished with a silver medallion of St Brighid along with a cross, the "Heart of Compassion" and the radiant "Sun of Hope".  The cross can be exchanged for a triquetra.  This bead string is about 43cm in length. 

 

Another style of prayer beads available through LunaNoire Creations, are the Kuan Yin Lotus beads (left) which are based on the Catholic rosary in that there are three sections of 13 lotus seeds each separated  by crystals (rose quartz, amethyst or green jade) and a silver lotus charm, and which is finished with a string of seven "focus" crystal beads and a silver Kuan Yin and lotus charm.

 

All devotional and prayer beads purchased from LunaNoire Creations come with an organza carry bag and detailed instructions of how to use the beads (along with suggested prayers or chants).  All proceeds from our Etsy store help in the publication of books about the Goddess - the first of which, In Her Sacred Name, is anticipated to be available early October 2014.