by Lesley Wheeler.
The only way to pray is through my feet, 
earthward, jolted in return by the fizz of a spiking current. 
I never thought a circuit would loop through me,
I believed I was separate, alone, done with gods, but here it is:
I've found a way to pray. Through my feet,
I reach down. There's something animate, mycelial, that touches me back. 
It's a species of love, a thinking-spike, 
a zinging circuit of energy and dirt, blood and spirit-
plutonic conversation, mostly wordless.
The way l've found to pray is through my feet,
sole bared to wooden boards, or rug, or slate, or buggy grass, 
just as you want to press skin to a beloved's, sparking a current, a circuit.
Not that earth loves me, exactly. Matter's what matters.                                             

She wants me to return the mess of my only body,

pray from head through feet as I sink, unthinking ash, into love's circuit.'

      "My life's spiritual journey has been a long, strange trip, with something of a political bent to it.  It has accompanied me in my travels, and it has woven together elements of Catholicism, Quakerism, and Lutheranism - and I look forward to sharing it.”

~ Susan Frybort

the prayer I cannot pray. 
the words that rest unspoken. 
the feelings that can’t be named. 
the grief that bursts wide open.
the cry that turned to laughter. 
the smile that broke the ice. 
the pain that was cut off. 
the poem I couldn’t write.
life, bless all the forming things 
that escape or remain in me; 
those resisting to be seen, 
and the ones that risk
coming out 
as brave beginnings.