I recently had an opportunity to work with people from the Lakota and Hopi tribes. Part of this work entailed learning about their special connection to the Earth and their ancestors. My time with them was also to seek guidance for my own path and to learn their healing ways. My intention was to welcome whatever experience I was to have, to give up control of the outcome, and to just be with what was.
It was during this time that I was brought to a medicine wheel that lay within a sacred site. The medicine wheel held countless prayers before mine and there was a palpable sanctity within it. For me, it represented connection to aspects of myself, to the natural world, and to those who walked before me. While I didn't exactly know what intention to hold, I slowly moved around the circle pausing at every direction sending a prayer of gratitude to the wind. As I moved, I listened to my Lakota guide sing a prayer for the same in a language I did not understand but could feel in my heart. I realized that in this precious moment, I was small. There was no prayer I could muster that seemed worthy for Spirit to hear...my only prayer was to be seen.
When my prayer ended and my movement was done, three women approached the circle asking to join. I did not know them and it seemed odd they'd want to join this sacred space not knowing me either, but upon approval from my Lakota guide, they entered the circle and sat within the wheel. It was not lost upon me that the three women completed the four directions to which my prayers were sent: four women, one for each direction, North, West, South, and me, in the East. My guide asked them their intention for the prayer circle. What is it they needed? What could we pray for? Instead of presenting their own desires, their own requests, they each looked at me and spoke words of love, grace, and affirmation. They were drawn to that space to be present for a total stranger, to validate me in all of my smallness. I was being seen.
By letting go of control for what was to be, I was reminded miracles happen all around us, sometimes directly to us, with no direct oversight from us. It was within this medicine wheel my prayer was instantly answered. I had come for the purpose of releasing what had been and for embracing what will be. I had come to be reminded that even if we do not know the language of our prayer, and what is hidden in our hearts, Spirit always knows.
And we are always seen.