I'll say a little prayer for you. Forever, forever, you'll stay in my heart. ~ I'll Say A Prayer For You, Aretha Franklin
I have a buddha in a bubble!
My children surprised me with
a snow globe that houses a golden Buddha, seated in a peaceful womb of gold and
glittering with sparkles that alight on his shoulders, his head, his hands, his
lap and his feet.
Every morning, I shake my buddha!
And I watch as my vanity
lights illuminate the sparkles as they glisten and swirl in a dance to start
the day.
At the closing of one of my
very first yoga practices, I sat for the first time with my hands in prayer
while the instructor said a few words.
He instructed us to exhale
what we no longer needed and to inhale some goodness into its place. After the
practice, I was so hypnotized, I would have followed any instruction, and this
seemed easy enough. I was surprised how visual it was for me, and I exhaled
what I imagined as the color gray, and I inhaled what I imagined as the color
white.
During subsequent practices, he’d
ask us to send some positive energy to someone we loved.
At that point, I hadn’t heard
much about energy,
but I’d find myself visualizing this, too, and I’d imagine white stars falling
on the person to whom I’d choose to send some love.
With some more years of
practice under my belt, these stars have turned from white to gold. Somehow, now,
for me, imagining these falling, golden stars have become a sort of visual
prayer, the kind I say after moving on my mat.
More recently, one of our
instructors was not well, and for several practices during his recuperation, I’d
find myself imagining him seated like a buddha with gold stars falling all
around, landing on his head and sticking to his shoulders like ornaments on a
tree.
And so it was with surprise
that I received this most thoughtful of gifts, my buddha in a bubble, complete
with sparkles as gold as the stars I send in my prayers and sitting there like someone
who’s been blessed.
Every morning, I look at this
buddha, and I see the gold dust all over him. He’s even sitting in some. And,
to me, he looks blessed, and I see in this image that it’s possible to be surrounded
in blessings whether we know it or not.
Sometimes, for many, it can
be hard to see such blessings, especially the kind that can’t be seen or touched.
This week, the actor and comedian,
Robin Williams, died. So did the daughter of a friend of mine who herself passed
away a while back. And it makes me wish that it was possible for them to have
been sustained by the golden prayers that I’m sure were sent to them and that
I’ve no doubt they had sent to others.
For I’m thinking that they,
too, were sitting in some gold dust, maybe even with some of it resting on
their shoulders and in their hair and on their feet.
And it’s a safe bet to say that they’ve
even left some behind in their footprints.
I think it can be very
difficult to exhale that which no longer serves us.
Sometimes, it can get stuck
inside, and I think this may have been some of what happened to these souls.
And it makes me wish that more of us would have known of their struggles, so that
as many golden prayers could have been sent to help in whatever way they might
have.
Last night, at the end of
practice, a siren blared as we sat there in prayer with the room quiet and the
sky dark. And the instructor said that, growing up, he was taught to say a
prayer when a siren went by. And so he asked us all to do the same, to say a
prayer for someone we didn’t know, but for whom if we did, we’d love and
bless all the same.
I got home later that night and
prepared to settle down for the evening, my buddha on the vanity, serenely
protected in its globe.
I picked it up and gave it a
good shake.
And, as I looked inside, I
saw that the vanity lights had formed a halo around his head, and I watched one
more time as the golden blessings swirled all around and then settled down for
the evening, too.
And then I took a picture and sent it to
my children, so I could send my love and say good night and give them both my blessings.
