This is a guided breath meditation for prayer.
For those of us to whom prayer does not come so easily.
Some people are raised from the time they are small children with prayer.
With a clear and concrete faith.
That tells them just how to pray.
That offers clear answers to the question,
Who hears my prayers?
But for others of us prayer is not so simple.
The primary daily prayer in the Jewish tradition opens with an invocation,
A plea.
Please unlock my lips that my mouth might declare your glory.
Praying is essential to being alive.
But for some of us,
When we settle in to pray,
Heavy hearted,
All we find are locked lips.
For the next 10 minutes,
Let's allow our breath to guide our prayers.
Join me in affirming that if you are breathing,
You are praying.
If you are breathing,
There is what to be grateful for.
And as human beings with feeling hearts,
If you are breathing,
You're probably also carrying some amount of pain.
Let's settle in now to a guided meditation practice for prayer.
We're going to relate to each inhale as a plea.
Please source of life,
Fill me up.
And each exhale as an exaltation.
Thank you.
Heart that beats the world for letting me pulse with life today.
Take a comfortable seated position.
Let your next inhalation invite the spine to be long.
The head to stretch skyward.
Feel the pull of gravity on your physical body,
Joining you with your seat and with the earth as you exhale.
Inhale to lengthen.
Exhale to ground.
Inhale to lengthen.
Exhale to ground.
Open your heart now and make space for all that it is holding today.
Its hopes and its dreams,
Its ecstasy and its tears.
Welcome your feeling,
Yearning heart to your body,
To this moment,
To this practice.
Draw in breath deeply through the nose and feel your yearning.
Feel your joy or your sadness.
With the inhale,
Let the heart sing of its truth.
Pause on full and be with the fullness of your prayer.
And as you're ready,
Exhale out an open mouth.
Soften the face.
Release the breath and feel gratitude.
If you need,
Let your exhale be like a sigh today.
Each exhale gives way to each new inhale.
Breathe in deeply the truth of your yearning.
Soften to exhale.
I am alive.
I inhale.
I need.
I exhale.
I am blessed.
I inhale.
I pray.
I exhale.
I am grateful.
Feel how each inhale feeds each exhale.
Opening in prayer.
Make space in the cells of you to feel alive.
Our breath is our most basic prayer.
Breathing,
Yearning,
Standing in awe of all the goodness,
All of the blessing.
I am alive.
I am growing.
I am healing.
I am witness.
I am held.
I am loved.
