Our Paths in the Valley

Bid the Great Earth Unlock Her Treaures

Prayer of the Sower 

Blessings to the seeds I press
Into this dark damp earth. 
By the grace of the Great Mother Mighty, 
Through the open finger spaces
Of Her Hand that all things fashioned
Let living seedlings slip silently upward.
Hail, Queen of gardens and pastures!
Bid the Great Earth unlock Your treasures.
Bid the soil the young seeds nourish.
Never shall their teeming forces
Never shall their strength prolific
Fail to nourish and sustain us
If the Daughters of Creation,
They, the free and bounteous givers
Still extend their gracious favor,
Offer still their strong protection.
Rise, O Earth! slumbering in the sun;
Bid the soil unlock her treasures!

-  Adapted by Mike Garofalo from a Finnish Prayer in Pagan Prayers

Seeds: Quotes, Poems, Sayings

"A good gardener always plants three seeds:
one for the bugs,
one for the weather,
and one for himself."
-  Leo Aikman 

"Seedsmen reckon that their stock in trade is not seeds at all ... it's optimism."
-  Geoff Hamilton
  

With Beauty Again It Is Finished

"Greeting the Dawn,
This Fruitful Day,
For Sun, Sky, Soil, Water, Plants, Animals, and Mankind
I am so grateful.

Seeing the Light without,
Feeling the Light within,
I walk on. 

Thus joyfully you accomplish your tasks,
Happily will the old men in the fields regard you,
Happily will the children regard you,
Happily will women in their homes regard you;
Happily may our trails lead us in the way of peace. 
Happily may we all return.  

With beauty before me I walk,
With wisdom above me I walk,
With good works around me I walk,
With love it is finished,
With beauty again it is finished!"

Adapted by Mike Garofalo from a Navaho prayer found in Pagan Prayers. 

In the summertime, I begin my walk very early, around 5:30, at daybreak.  It is cooler and quieter at this time of day.  A good time for a prayer of thanksgiving to the Great Spirit. 

      

 

I enjoy this painting of a Daoist Sage, an Immortal, smiling, walking in the clouds.  A bottle of magical elixir hangs from his Dragon Cane in one hand, and the Peach of Immortality in his other hand.  There is also a sacred Crane ready to show the way.  

   

"Zen Master Yunmen Wenyan and Shifu Miao Zhang were walking together in the valley behind the temple one cloudy summer morning.  It began to rain steadily on the two old friends.  Yunmen said, “My staff has changed into a dragon and is swallowing up the heaven and earth.  So, my friend, where do mountains, rainfall, rivers and the great earth come from?”
Miao Zhang was quiet for awhile, stopped on the trail, and then held his cane in his hand with the tip pointing to the sky.  He said, “Yunmen, as for the source of their coming, the tip of my cane points to the fecund depths of vast emptiness, the crook end to the endless inter-marriages of ten thousand realities, and my hand grasps the heartwood of the ordinary mind.  So, my friend, Yunmen, where are they all going?” "

-  Shifu Miao Zhang's Koan Collection
   By Mike Garofalo, in Way of the Staff