Steve Garnaas-Holmes: Praying in Deep Snow

Photo: Karen Navarro

This is about prayer.
When you’ve tramped down a path
over and over through deep snow
you create a little trough of packed snow
that you can walk easily on
though the powder on either side
is deep. It appears to be a trench
but really you’re walking on the top
of a narrow wall. Step off either side
and you plunge in up to your hips.
So what is the prayer part:
walking on the unseen?
Paying close attention, not stepping off,
not being fooled by drifted snow,
following the narrow way?
Yes, perhaps. But prayer is not so hard, is it?
I’m thinking of when you miss and
step off into the deep, stuck even a little—
that’s prayer. When you feel
the snow pressing against your legs.
When you really are where you are.
When you touch a boundary.
When you’re wondering what’s next.
When you stop.
When you laugh at yourself.
When you know you are an animal,
but not a fox.
Then you step back up onto the path
and get on with going places.
        
Steve Garnaas-Holmes, from Unfolding Light blog