Animist Gratitude Prayers

body, ground, microbes, moss, trees, beings, mystery

Two things made me want to write some animist prayers:

1. Saying Grace

I think we said grace before almost every dinner, growing up? Even dinners out. I’d always feel awkward, bowing my head and praying in public. I wish I could tell you that it felt too performative. But that wasn’t it. Not back then. Or it’s at least not what I remember. I just didn’t want to be outed as a believer.

My five-year-old now sometimes asks to say grace. Mostly we don’t. An anthropomorphic deity doesn’t resonate with me anymore, so when she asks, I sometimes thank the contributors to the meal themselves, rather than thanking God for them. It feels more playful; more profound; more authentic to my current self.

Thank you, wheat, for the bread.
Thank you, vine, for the grapes.
Thank you, chickens, for the meat.
Thank you, farmers, for tending the fields.
Thank you, laborers, for prepping the chicken.
Thank you, drivers, for getting everything to the store.
Thank you, store workers, for taking care of everything until we bought it.

You can go as deep as you want with this. Thank the dinosaurs, for example, who decomposed into the oil used to make the plastic that wraps the food. Thank the researchers, engineers, and activists working on whatever comes after oil plastic. Thank the trees that make the wood to make the table. Thank the microbiome that helps digest the bread. Thank the designers, factory workers, and global network of trade that create the artifacts used to consume any meal.

How staggering, the complexity and richness of our most mundane circumstance. What a beautiful practice to reflect on it, saying grace. Giving thanks.

2. People of Gratitude

In an episode of Mapping the Doctrine of Discovery (I tried so hard but can’t find the specific episode! You’ll have to listen through them all yourself to find it, lucky you!), the guest talked about a convention of indigenous peoples. At the United Nations, maybe? They talked about what united them all. The first answer they came up with was that they had the same oppressors; similar oppression. An elder spoke up to set the record straight. Let’s not define ourselves by our oppression. We also, every single one of our traditions, share similar gratitude practices.

Robin Wall Kimmerer made one of these famous in her Braiding Sweetgrass chapter on the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address. Haudenosaunee children say this in school where dominant-culture kids pledge the flag. They thank the earth, the water, the plants, the berries, the insects, the forests, the birds, the moon and sun and stars. “Now our minds are one,” they say, over and over and over.

I love this idea. I want a similar gratitude practice. A similar grounding in reverence for the world, that fits my current beliefs, without appropriating another people’s custom.

Here’s an attempt. I consider this incomplete. I’m not thanking everyone I’d like to thank. I talk too much about the forest and too little about the ocean. I omit mountains entirely. Some wording could stand tightening.

I may publish an updated version someday. Still, I like having something to start with. Maybe you will also enjoy adopting this into your own gratitude practice? Feel free to drop or add stanzas and tweak the wording to make it more meaningful to you.

not really sure what’s going on here, tbqh! found some interesting pics from my camera roll and slapped pink words on top. (you might recognize the top two from recent-ish Notes of mine on this here Substack.) maybe these are some of the ways that nature prays. or plays? p(r|l)ays

Animist Gratitude Prayers

Thank you, body,
and all its subsystems—
thank you, great multitude
of selves and beings
who live within—
for working
improbably
together
to give me sight, sound, smell,
for letting me know
this beautiful world
in some small way.

Thank you, ground, for holding us.
For supporting us.
For catching our feet
and catching our falls.
Thank you for storing the water
and housing the countless multitudes
who form the foundations of our food web.

Thank you, countless multitudes of small ones,
each simple life within and upon
        the soil of the ground,
        the soil of our bodies,
your diverse collective of taxons
mutually supporting each other's work,
                                     each other's play,
                                     each other's art,
                                     each other's worship:
root-whispering,
    nutrient cycling,
        making food from waste
            and from death:
                life.

Thank you, moss,
thank you, lichen,
for turning rocks into soil
over eons,
for making space
for plants to grow,
for teaching tenacity,
        irrepressibility,
        how to bounce back
        after being trampled,
for preaching persistence,
        humility,
        how to grind down empire
        with but time and soft.

Thank you, buried water,
airborne nutrients,
for inviting us to reach deep,
to stretch high,
to be our boldest,
                   most unfolded,
to answer sky
                   with canopy
to realize earth
                   with roots.

Thank you, green ones,
parallel nation,
living slow and talking quiet,
for turning sunlight into food,
                                    into wood,
                                    into medicine,
for shoring up the ground,
for shade,
for cushion,
for texture,
for beauty,
for inhaling our exhales,
for partnering with us
to perpetually replenish
the air.

Thank you, leaves,
the thousands of hands
of our cousins the trees,
for catching the light,
for shimmering,
for alchemizing 
photons into glucose,
for teaching us how to let go,
the beauty in seasonality:
    spring fecundity,
    summer shade,
    color and play in the fall,
    and in winter,
    for getting out of the way,
    letting the light shine through.

Thank you, wind,
thank you, air,
for circulating
    warm to cool,
    cloud to drought,
for carrying
leaves, spores, pollen, viruses,
all those packets of new information,
so the world can keep reinventing itself.

Thank you, squirrels,
for teaching us how to play.
Thank you cats,
for teaching us how to sprawl.
Thank you dogs,
for teaching us how to greet.
Thank you horses,
for teaching us how to run.

Thank you, birds,
for carrying berries,
for dispersing seeds,
for watching over.
Thank you for humbling us,
we deep-sky folk,
who wander in two dimensions
the depths of your domain.

Thank you, fish,
and other creatures of the waves,
preeminent biome of this watery world,
who render all our land ecosystems
a mere afterthought.

Thank you, creatures,
thank you, cousins,
for teaching us that there are
so many ways to navigate,
so many ways to relate,
so many ways to know,
so many ways to sing.

Thank you oceans,
for never ceasing.

Thank you clouds,
for rain.

Sun, moon, and stars,
for order.

Galactic filaments,
mirroring fingerprints.

Thank you, unfolding mystery,
all we've yet to learn,
all we'll never know:
Thank you for only ever answering
with subtler, multiplying questions.
Thank you, 
hope within uncertainty,
possibility within despair,
rest within the spiral,
joy within the mist.
Thank you for leading us onward,
giving us something to yearn toward,
worlds without end.