Prayer is often a very hotbed issue because there are so many with rather adamant ideas of what is and is not prayer and insist that their definition of such is and can be the only one. I disagree. As I believe, prayer is simply a turning of all that one is inward or outward or both at once in reflection regarding what has been, what is and what one would like or hopes will be. To be prayer, and in spite of what the more adamant among us believe, it need not necessarily be aimed toward an imagined deity or deities. It can merely be aimed at the self or have no aim at all. A prayer can simply be a hope of a thing without being a hope for answer FROM something or someone in particular. When I pray, more often than not, I naturally pray to myself because I acknowledge the fact those aspects of nature out of my control care nothing of my hopes and, thus, I must pray and answer my own hopes regarding those things I am able to influence. Truly, that I CAN and DO hope means that there IS hope. Within the hope, within the conscious or subconscious prayer, is the answer to it.

The simple hope for sunshine or, in my case, the continuing hope of rain and moody skies counts as a prayer. Voting for a presidential candidate is a prayer - an expression of one's hope for one political direction over another. Looking forward to one's birthday or to turkey at Thanksgiving or to snow at Yule or on Christmas day are all prayers. The hope for pregnancy and the hope one isn't pregnant are prayers. Crossing one's fingers is a prayer. A knock on wood, closing a window against the wind, the planting of a flower or vegetable, the giving of a gift - all prayer. Indeed, prayer is as often a subconscious wish or hope as it is a conscious one. Prayer need not be deliberate. Subconscious prayers are no less legitimate than conscious ones. We have conscious hopes and unconsious hopes. They all matter and they are all prayer, whether with ceremony or without. That they are each hopes means necessarily they each have answers, each answer rooted in the question - Why do you hope for ... ? The answer to why you hope is the answer to the hope itself.

I often think of my writing as prayer. I must achieve what can only be described as a deeply reflective and meditative state to do it the way I wish in order to achieve the outcome I desire. It is only in deep reflection that is, ironically, as intensely focused on my internal world as it is intensely focused on the external world, that I satisfy my hopes of finding and/or creating some bits of human gold in order to translate them into words to preserve. It is like the gathering of all that I have been and am into one intensely-focused and perfect moment. It is like one incredible inhalation from all directions inward and outward to be held in one place, in one time. I live there and only there. I do not speak until I have listened to what that intense moment has to say but, paradoxically, the moment sometimes does not speak except through my own voice. I often do not know what needs to be said or is worth saying until I say it. There is wisdom everywhere one looks, however, one indeed has to look to see it and, if it does not come readily, continue looking until one sees it. One has to listen and continue listening to hear it. One has to reach out and continue reaching out to feel it. I do not believe in spirits or deities. I believe in myself and my own power to find the meaning I seek even if I'm not actively seeking it or not even consciously aware of the wisdom I need. Wisdom seems to come to us nearly as often when we have not asked for it as when we do. Inspiration is mine sometimes inexplicably and seemingly out of nowhere and sometimes through excruciating effort to coax it into view or into my conscious awareness that I can then put it into some meaningful form. All I must ensure is that my spirit does not fall into apathy. Apathy is a closed-off spirit that cannot willingly take breath or receive it serendipitously. Apathy is lack of hope. Apathy is lack of prayer. Apathy is lack of answers because it isn't consciously or subconsciously asking questions.

I believe a prayer is always its own answer. All one must do is find and keep the will and ability to open to it. You will sometimes have to work for an answer, sometimes the answer will come of its own accord. Perhaps among the greatest of prayers is the hope for knowledge of when to work for answers and when to wait for them. Of course, the source of all prayer, of all hope, is the willingness to go an asking. That is passion. Without it, there is no prayer, there is no hope, there are no answers.

As always, I recommend people give more genuine quality time to themselves. Because I believe the greatest shortage among human beings is real empathy for other life - human or otherwise - which is to say a conscious awareness of interconnection - and because you must understand your own nature to have a window into the nature of other life, continually exploring what it means to be you is the only path to understanding what it it is to be another. Understanding and loving self is essential to understanding and loving others. Weakness in self-love, self-devotion creates weaknesses in love and devotion to all else.

I've said many times over the years that human culture does not and never has suffered from too much self-indulgence but rather from too little. Human history repeatedly illustrates this. If you truly value contributing to the well-being of others, the quality of that contribution is in proportion with the time, thought and energy given to making yourself healthy, happy, prosperous and wise. If you devote to others disproprotionately with devotion to yourself, you suffer the consequences of self-neglect and the others to whom you are devoted are rewarded with less than you are genuinely able to give. To fail in evolving self, nurturing self, preserving self is to fail in your devotion to all else.

Self-neglect isn't simply personally irresponsible, it is socially irresponsible.

In light of the inescapable interconnectedness of all things and especially of all life, however, I do not see a genuine border between what is "self" and what is "not self". Such division is an human intellectual invention. It is often difficult for us to be fully aware of it, but what happens to "else" also happens to "self". The opposite of that is also true - reward or injury to self is reward or injury to all else, to everyone else. It only makes sense that the healthier  the self, the healthier all life in general, the happier the self, the greater the collective happiness, the wiser the self, the wiser the species, the wiser is all life. The more prosperous the person, the more prosperous are people. What many philosophies attempt to do is to promote the value of the collective above the value of the individual when, in fact, the "collective" is merely a term to refer to a group of individuals. Without the individual, without self, there can be no "collective", no "culture", no "nation", no "tribe", no "community", no "species". In my mind, these philosophies have it precisely backward and make the same mistake at the other end of the spectrum as one who is almost entirely self-centered. Healthy and realistic balance isn't simply a focus on "the good of the many" above self, nor is it "the good of the one" above the many. Balance is focus on the self within the context of how self affects all else and how all else affects self or, more accurately, focus on the fact that "self" and "other" is factually and functionally one integral whole. To neglect self is to neglect other, to neglect other is to neglect self.

For too long, human cultures have given primacy to the tribe. The remedy to that irrational imbalance isn't to become entirely self-centered but rather to devote a greater quantity of quality time to self within the inescapable context of interconnectedness and integration.

How can you understand happiness in others if you are never happy or the quality of your own happiness is less than it ought to be? How can you understand the needs and wishes or hopes of others if you never address your own needs, your own wishes, your own hopes, or if you address them too seldom or half-heartedly? How can you devote self to the prosperity and preservation of others if your own prosperity and your own sense of preservation is neglected?

What understand you of other life if you haven't adequately lived your own?

My wish for tomorrow is the same simple wish of any other day - that I will find it within me to live this day as intensely, as passionately and as rationally as I'm able and, at the end of it, be adequately prepared and passionate to do the same with the next. I tend not to put much prior thought into the future because it detracts from the attention I want to give to the now. Yes, I primarily live in the moment. Where else would I be?

Many believe strongly that to not obsessively plan for one's future is irresponsible. I feel strongly that to not obsessively devote one's complete attention to the now is equally or even more irresponsible. It is of the greatest value to me personally that I adequately live every single moment to the best of my ability at that time, in that place. I'm continually working for the "perfect moment" ... if such can be said to exist. That does not preclude building in myself the ability to do better tomorrow but, when I find myself thinking more about the day to come than about this one, I tend to feel a deep betrayal of self and of the gifts here and now. I truly believe that who I am now is a one-time-in-the-life-of-the-universe event as is everything and everyone happening around me. I and they, these moments we are, we have, we see and smell and hear, the moments we taste and touch are jewels irreplaceable. I can't help thinking it a horrible tragedy to let any of it slip by without notice or with so little notice we are unmoved by it. So, it is one of my most deeply held beliefs that it is better to have a short but fully-lived life than a long one of half-passion or even apathy. If lack of adequate planning cuts my life short - so be it. I will not regret the choices. I will make the simple watching of sunlight crossing a dirty floor an adventure worthy of the greatest explorers because, with the right frame of mind, the right passion, it is as astonishing as anything else one can name. Human eyes, human senses, the human mind and "heart" make it so.

It's true, though, even with much prior experience, it still takes great effort to live as I wish to live and I make abundant errors in fidelity to what I value - like anyone else. I attempt to simply acknowledge the mistakes and rededicate myself to what I value and move on. To dwell on those weak moments is the same mistake as distracting myself from the now with too much thought of the future.

But, let me also say this - always in my thoughts is the wish that everyone experience their moments of tomorrow more intensely than any collection of moments before them and that it leaves you hungry to do the same for all moments to come.

I wish all of you profound peace, long intense life, abundant love and joy and, as always, endless awe.

Naumadd

"One fully lived moment is worth more than an eternity of apathy."