The Creation of Prayer

Before there was anything else on Earth, there was a great sea. The Creator reached out and touched the sea, and thus began life. A tiny cell thrived in the great sea, moving, moving, always toward the light. And the one became many, and the many grew in size and in variety and beauty, and in something that was not quite knowledge. The living things in the sea did not know the sea, because there was nothing else, only the sea that was vast and green and beautiful. They did not know that without the sea they could not live. They did not know about the sun or the moon or the stars.

Then the Creator reached out again and caused a great upheaval of the Earth, and mountains rose up out of the sea. In time the rains and the sun and the wind gentled the mountains, and there were shores and valleys. The sun raised water from the sea, and the wind blew the water over the land and baptized it with life—green and spreading, growing, and growing more, according to its nature.

Then the tides hurled creatures from the sea onto the dry land, and some were carried back into the deep, but one found the land to be hospitable, and that one thrived, now creeping upon the land, now swimming in the sea. And the one became many, and the many grew in size and in variety and beauty, and in something that was not quite knowledge, but rather in a sense of the difference between dry land and water. Moving, moving, always toward the light, they found that streams flowed from the mountains to the sea, and they thrived in and alongside the streams, which came from the rain, which the sun raised from the sea.

The green things—spreading, growing, and growing more, always toward the light—became strong and tall, and invited the creeping things to feast on their fruit. In time, the strongest of the creatures developed claws to scale the trees, and some with fins grew wings instead to soar over oceans and rivers and land. But even those who built nests and lived and bore their young in trees required water to survive, just as did the creatures who swam only in the sea.

And the dryland creatures became many, and the many grew in size and in variety and beauty, and in something a little more like knowledge, until one arose from all the creatures who roamed the earth, and that one had knowledge and more; that one had curiosity. And the one became many, and the many grew in size and in variety and strength, according to their nature.

But some of them turned their intelligence toward small, inward things, and forgot about the sea, and with all their curiosity, they did not know that—like the creatures who swam in the sea—they required it to survive. They injured the streams, though they required them to survive. They injured the creatures who swam in the streams; they injured the air and the land and the sea; they blocked the sun and shut their eyes to the light—though they required all these things to grow according to their nature, even to survive.

In their minds, they forgot about the eternal sea, though their hearts remembered, and pulsed with admonition. And they became uneasy, because they believed that their minds were greater than their hearts. And so they defied their hearts, and thus they injured even the streams that flowed through their bodies, pulsing from their hearts with admonition.

But in every age, among all the creatures, there have been those who remember the eternal sea, who understand that, where pure streams cannot flow, living things shrivel and perish, and where the mind is not nourished by the heart, the mind withers and is sterile. Those who remember are the teachers and sages, the Wise Ones, the Ancients, the embodied admonitions of the heart’s pulsing.

They tell us, Swim, always, in the remembered pure streams that flow to the sea. Immerse yourself always in that awareness, which is prayer. When you drink clear water, let it be a ceremony and celebrate the eternal sea, which is something that we know of God. For prayer is to the spirit as water is to the body… and those who immerse themselves in

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