Prayer -- "Guide our hands in your hands"

Prayers are often spontaneous and immediate, but in some cultures, prayers are also carefully crafted works that hold the energy instilled in them by use by those who recite them with heartfelt and focused intensity. This is one of those kinds of prayers. I found this prayer by Caitlin Mathews in 1999 and it helped form the shape of things to come, as I used it to call upon the Mother-energy so long neglected in spiritual traditions.

Brighid of the mantle, encompass us,
Lady of the Lambs, protect us,
Keeper of the Hearth, kindle us,
Beneath your mantle, gather us
And restore us to memory....

Mothers of our mother,
Foremothers strong,
Guide our hands in your hands,
Remind us how to kindle the hearth,

To keep it bright,
To preseve the flame,
Your hands upon ours,
Our hands within yours,
To kindle the light,
both day and night

Te mantle of Brighid about us,
The memory of Brighid within us,
the protection of Brighid keeping us
From harm, from ignorance,
from heartlessness,
This day and night,
From dawn till dark
From dark to dawn ..... Catlin Matthews

Though the prayer is specifically to Brighid, it could as easily be to other "mother" Goddesess as easily. The effectiveness of this prayer depends on your ability to see each thing clearly and allow that image to become part of you. Prayer, including enhanced prayer (which some of us call spells), changes the individual who is praying, magnitising the individual to receive what has already been given (..."and when you pray, give thanks as if you've already received" that for which you are praying). By the time you come to the point of prayer, you have already opened pathways to receive.

One more thing enhances the success of prayer.Need intensifies prayer. Something there is which seeks balance. When you come to prayer in need, you sense the imbalance and seek to set it right. When you take one step in that direction, your Helpers are already there, making straight the way.

Pray this prayer, or any part of it that appeals to you, mindfully and with full intent on internalizing the image; the hands of guidance, the mantle of protection, the flame of life and warmth, and the memory that links you to what has gone before and enhances what will come after.

Some end a prayer with: So be it or So Shall it Be and some with Amen -- the meaning is much the same -- it means I declare and agree the truth of this -- and so it is.