Prayer, it stood the test of time and served me well, so I’m alright with it, are you?
In our world, scientific conceptualisation destroyed something vital, something we are born with I think… faith. Is it not in our nature to look up at the stars, to attempt to define the infinite and make sense of it? I have lived too many experiences that proved the existence of The Divine for me, but it wasn’t always that way. Many years ago now, I attended a yoga retreat in Rishikesh, India, there, a rather outlandish ‘spiritual’ New Zealander tried to convince me that The Tree of Life was real, but that in truth, ‘it was inverted.’ I just looked at her and said, ‘Let science prove it to me.’ She was horrified, but that is where I lived back then. Still is really, only The Light proved itself, right alongside science.
All my life I asked for proof, eventually, I asked for my Truth (don’t do that by the way, no one really wants to know), then I asked for further evidence that what I was unveiling in The Self was indeed real, not imagined. When I asked for more, The Light decided to give it to me, that’s how I feel. But the truth is, when you ask for more you may very well be asked to let go of everything you know, which is not always fun or easy. Be careful what you pray for… the answers to one’s prayers are often disguised and slow to reveal themselves. The answers to one’s prayers may require that you grit down and fight, like I was called upon to do. Prayers do not lead to easy answers, only clear guidance that you can choose to follow, or not. Prayers gift you with steps, not the destination.
Every prayer written, was prayed on. I wrote them for myself in truth, then thought they may very well come to serve others too. I tend to organise them into collections of twelve, at the foot of each ‘prayer webpage’ you will find them turned into posters and Travelling Love Cards for you (always free):
The prayers have also been transformed into videos that you can share as many times as you’d like. They are slowly going up for free on YouTube and social media, but you can also buy a bundle for £1, just to show your thanks for the work and support (no pressure though, it is not a request, only information). I have not yet earned a penny from this site and it was built out of service and love, and I am still learning that it is okay to ask for a little something in return.
I find it really hard to ask for money, it’s always been that way, and when I’d travel the world and observe other travellers haggling angrily with locals over £2, I could never understand it. In Borneo, I once watched two twenty-something year olds deliberating over whether to buy the first Ribena they’d seen in months, or the cheaper local blackcurrant drink. The difference was cents. But I guess they were hungry for more time in beautiful places. I looked at it differently, the way I saw it, I was never going back, and one of my personal mottos is, ‘Do it once, do it right!’ So I never scrimped or over-saved, I simply went to live a dream, and lived it as fully as I was able to, financially speaking.
Now, understand, I was just a primary school teacher enjoying working overseas and travelling in the school holidays. The flights and destinations were highly affordable and I felt like the most blessed person alive! I was born to a working class world and I could not have lived that dream by living and teaching in England. In truth, my real dream was to travel the globe in one direction and make it the whole way around, but only money would have enabled that, so I adapted. So much beauty was witnessed during my adventures, and I must admit it, people with less seem to value what they have so much more. I learned a lot about what gratitude feels like when it is real, not just a token post on social media. And I learned that gratitude gave me more energy to be giving.
Another beautiful sight in ‘The Developing World’, or rather, I prefer to say, ‘The world that shows us our truth and our greed’, was Honesty Boxes. I imagine we had them once; locals will leave fruit from their trees by the side of the road and trust that those who take, give in return. I think that it is a beautiful way to live life, trusting that what you deliver to the world will be balanced in kind. I am still that working class woman, I have not changed, and my life is a lot smaller than it used to be, but that’s okay, because I learned that being grateful for the little things, well, it means the ‘big things’ matter less and less… until they do not matter at all.
There are two ways you can show your support, the first is by ‘paying’ Ana Maria Ltd. directly, via an Honesty-Box Payment, or, should you prefer to serve others in need, you can contribute to the work we are doing by donating to The Ana Maria Foundation. For now, The Foundation sponsors The Self-Help Library aspect of this site, including its development and longevity, and that is all, the rest of the work is all me. Click here to read more about where the money goes. For now, enjoy exploring the website and benefitting from the resources that you find, and forget about giving back. Today is not the day for that, today is all about stepping into the power that The Self-Help Library was designed to help you discover and claim for yourself.
Time to help yourself…
The truth is, many of us expect help to show up when we need it to. Likely, the world has made it pretty hard for anyone to truly show up for you these days. We cannot foresee a future that is fogged by physical health scares, mass-declines in mental health, and food that makes us metaphorically deaf, dumb and stupid.
The truth is, there are no heroes. No one is coming. You can of course ask for help, but now that so many human beings are suffering acutely, the sad reality is, I think there may be too many people to recover via a 1:1 support system. But do not fear, you hold so much power in your choices; unfortunately, choosing the right things when your cognitive functioning is impaired can become very challenging, which is why we recommend the book, Recovery Foundations, to anyone trying to recover from darker times.
