TEDxUCLA 2012: Open

Prayer

by

About Rachel

Rachel’s poetry has been featured on Morning Becomes Eclectic on NPR and as The Weather on the podcast phenomenon, Welcome to Night Vale. She is the 2017 Outstanding Instructor of the Year at UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. She’s a Write Club Los Angeles champ and resident writer for Hevria, where she is also featured as a performing artist on The Hevria Sessions. Her latest poetry collection, A Prayer on Behalf of the Broken Heart, was recently published by Finishing Line Press.

Transcript

Restore I/Me/Us/We to our natural state.

Remind I/Me/Us/We that all we actually do is vibrate: Mystic atomic shifts, shiny shattered shards, peeling off klippot, sparks of willingness, beautiful bits of potential.

Allow us to transcend these fleshly packages, these sweet and frail beautiful body-beings which are no more and no less than slowed light.

Right the wrongs inside us with your gentle correction.

Let us be pliant and guided, spirits undivided, aligned with brightness, joy and harmony.

Permit our distinct uniqueness to slip into perfect union with one another: seven billion snowflakes clinking into sacred mosaic, un-melted, un-melded, undeniable in all their diversified glory, each piece definite and desperately necessary, falling like a lock full of tumblers kissed by your key of divinity.

Penetrate us. Press against us where we need it, hit the sweet spot with your sanctified kiss, your infinite soothing providence, your whisper-wing of prettiness.

Lure us to you, reel us in, begin the holy reparation which will unfold if — and only if — we awaken.

We stand before you, naked in your garden, wandering through Pardes, behold our cracked-open hearts. We return, orbiting back.

Let the linear continuum of time-space reach its event horizon at long last, let the past, kiss the future in the hallowed present moment, let us finally reach the finishing line of this human race, let us step into grace and amazement as we curve in on ourselves, spiraling. 

Let us in. Enfold us in your unbroken circle of tzimtzum, hold us in your loving womb, let the sacred feminine rise, let Miriam clap her tambourine, let us dance, let us join hands and revolve, evolving into spherical reality.

Bring the revolution. Let us begin face to face, Panim el panim as we waltz into your Sea of Reeds split open to receive our fateful leap, as we heliotrope into your big-bright, as we sing unto thee in present tense.

Let us all rise. Let us be worthy. Let it be time. Let the sparks fly. Let us in. Let us begin. Let us make ourselves into vessels unbreakable so that we may receive your everything. Let there be light. Thank you. (Applause)