“Threshold Prayer” and Rite by Mael Brigde

 

Threshold Prayer

i/

I bow to you, goddess-saint

you of two forms

two worlds

help me live my threshold life

half in   half out

past always dragging at my thoughts

future filled with doubts

help me bear this liminal existence

find joy in my weariness

freedom in my grief

help me rise from the roughness of my path

join in the lilting waters of this life

ii/

I bow to you, goddess-saint

you of two forms

two worlds

thank you for my threshold life

no slave to one meaning   one ideology

one view of any memory

free to see anew   to draw astonished breath

at fresh and freeing insight

on this threshold, Brigit

I am not chained to who I was

but free to flow between this me and that

arriving at who I am this second

in this place with you

in this moment of wakefulness

in the joy of what is here

however simple

however small

how lucky I am to step above the threshold

not before and not after

but now

Performing the rite:

Choose a piece of cloth to symbolise Brigit's mantle and spread it out in the threshold of a doorway, part of it lying in one room and part of it lying in the next. Place the poem ahead of the mantle so that you can read it, and then bow to the mantle and to Brigit. Prostrate yourself, your full body stretched face down on the floor with your face on the mantle in the threshold, neither in nor out of either room.

Breathe quietly and become aware of your body and where it is; what you can feel on your skin, inside your body; your breath. When your thoughts wander, just keep returning to your body, and to Brigit, in this place.

As you lie on the floor, face down on her mantle, engage with the power and aliveness, the fertility and unfathomable age of Brigit's body, this earth. Allow these qualities to seep into you, till you are soaked throughout with them. Discover them already in you, who are a part of Brigit. Feel the difference it makes in you to share her endurance, her inextinguishability, her ability to destroy and transform and enliven herself again over and over for billions of years.

When you are ready, read or recite the threshold prayer, once, twice, or as many times, with as many reflections, as makes sense to you.

Rise and bow to the mantle and to Brigit, sovereign Goddess, protector of the land, the land herself. Keep your mantle and prayer somewhere nearby and visible so that when you have need, or daily, if you wish to build on this connection, you will be reminded of the rite.

 [[OPTIONAL: I wouldn't recommend doing this all of the time, as it gets you into your head and we are trying to get out of there. But for certain situations this may be a useful step before your deep reading of the prayer:

[[Think very briefly (seconds — it doesn't have to be correct or exhaustive, just what comes to mind) of what thresholds mean for you, and what thresholds are prominent in your life right now. Then let those ideas go and return simply to your body, and to Brigit, in this place.]]

Images: 1) Pale green cloth with bee pattern is spread on floor in threshold. 2) Closeup of cloth. 3) The cloth is folded with the prayer in a small flat basket and hung on the wall just above the floor. Photos by Mael Brigde.