Praying in the Dark

with the guidance of the dead

We are always praying in the dark. Most of the story of our souls before we were born into this life is a mystery to us. What lies before us is also a mystery. Our planet turns towards the darkness each day and spins in a galaxy that circles around dark matter. Most of the cosmos is dark matter—an no one, not even the physicists, knows what that is.

Civilization has offered us all kinds of illusory illuminations—from anthropocentric theologies to industrial technologies. None of which can tell us where we really come from, where we really are and where we might be going.

Once our ancestors took their guidance from the stars above them and the dirt beneath their feet. When you walk in the dark, you learn to feel the ground with your toes, your heels, your soul. The dead can see in the dark better than we can. But we must know where we want to go.

Those same ancestors carried embers with them, often wrapped in moss, to start a fire when they settled down for the night. That fire didn’t banish the darkness…it reminded them how vast it really was, even as it drew them close in a circle of warmth. Each of us holds those ancient embers in our hearts. To feel their warmth and be guided by their light we must give to them our attention and our breath. What do we want—truly, madly, deeply? What prayers did we carry with us into this life? What is the most precious prayer that we would wrap in moss and carry with us lifetime after lifetime?

A friend of mine once said that the real prayer for most Americans was “Please god let me continue to be able to drive to Walmart to buy more shit.” There are variations on this of course, some are ordering from Amazon at this point. But they all come down to the capitalist status quo—let human beings continue to dominate the planet. Let us not have to ask what we really want…and come to terms with who we really are. Only when we know the answer to our soul prayer can we know which stars to follow and where to put our feet. Only when we know what the embers are in our hearts that have been warm there for lifetimes can the dead help us get where we really want to go.

Someone will say that they want “peace” but what does that peace mean? Is that a peace that includes nations and empires that have always relied on extraction and war and slavery? Or are we praying for a peace that returns us to the long story of our souls? A young boy praying with me around a small fire in front of the fire last night told me that he never wanted to forget to touch the earth. Let me always remember to touch the earth. Let us always remember that the dirt of the earth is the very bodies of our ancestors and they are beneath us at every moment.

When we know what we want, we can begin to trust where the dead are leading us. That doesn’t mean the way will be easy or safe or that we will arrive where we long to go in a single lifetime or a single epoch. We may need to climb mountains and traverse swamps, cross oceans, and swim with sharks. But what the dead promise is us that they will hold us and guide us. We must know what it is we want to be able to feel that guidance, to trust and have faith in them even when we feel frightened. The dead are not frightened. They can see in the dark.

Today I am in the dark. I pray every morning the same heart prayer, Gather my kin close, my blood kin, my soul kin, my fur kin, my odd kin. Gather my kin close. Gather my kin close.

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Perdita Finn is the author of Take Back the Magic: Conversations with the Unseen World and the forthcoming Mothers of Magic: Recovering the Love at the Heart of the World. She teaches popular workshops on collaborating with the dead. With her husband Clark Strand she is the founder of the feral fellowship The Way of the Rose and the book by the same name.