So excited for this book! It is written and illustrated by a couple of our favorites. A much needed book for these times.
Prayer is an ancient practice—one that has been utilized and embraced by cultures around the world and across time. There is not one correct way to pray, and no tradition holds a monopoly on what prayer is or means. In The Uncommon Book of Prayer author, psychosomatic therapist, and flower essence practitioner Heidi Smith reveals that prayer does not even need to be practiced within a religious tradition, though it can be. Instead, she reintroduces readers to the idea of prayer as a highly personal practice that can bring joy and enlightenment, heal deeply felt trauma, and work toward planetary healing.
Readers will encounter a new definition of prayer: An active agreement that you make between your soul and the Divine (whatever that means to you). It is a sacred practice that can be called upon to bring about states of grace, healing, and change. Through this expansive, heart-centered experience readers will explore their own existing feelings about prayer and learn to build a personal practice that is authentic and sustaining.
In inviting chapters grounded with historical context, sample prayers, and stunning illustrations inspired by illuminated manuscripts, readers will learn to:
Refine a prayer practice.
Explore ambivalence around prayer and some of its difficult associations.
Integrate a prayer practice into co-creative and healing work.
Facilitate prayer circles in your community.
Open and strengthen communication with the heart, our most potent tool of resonance and the seat of true wisdom in the body.
Create space and possibility for hope and dreaming (which are not frivolous, but instead life-sustaining and changing practices).
Create vital and creative solutions for your life and our world.
There are many ways in to healing. A conscious prayer practice formed by reading The Uncommon Book of Prayer is a way into co-creating with the universe and accessing all the gifts that lie therein.
Heidi Smith, MA, RH (AHG) is a psychosomatic therapist, registered herbalist, flower essence practitioner, and the author of The Bloom Book. Within her private practice, Moon & Bloom, Heidi works collaboratively with her clients to empower greater balance, actualization, and soul-level healing within themselves. She is passionate about engaging both the spiritual and scientific dimensions of the plant kingdom, and sees plant medicine and ritual as radical ways to promote individual, collective, and planetary healing.
Chelsea Granger is a multidisciplinary artist. Painting, drawing, illustration, murals, and tattoos are the foundation of her practice. She recently self-published a zine about death and grief titled So Many Ways to Draw a Ghost. After the death of her mom as well as a dear friend, she started seeing her art as a way to sing up life, with the hope that her art can act as a doorway to create conversations about death and grief. Chelsea’s art is of the everyday, inspired by the overlap of earth/spirit dimensions, and woods as church. She is interested in painting as medicine, painting as a portal, painting as a spell. Her work has been exhibited across the Northeast, and her murals exist across New England. For more than twelve years, Chelsea has collaborated with Thyme Herbal, making medicine posters and zines. Chelsea holds a bachelor’s degree in painting from UMass-Amherst and a certificate in therapeutic recreation from Gateway Community College. Her work celebrates life while honoring death and walking gently into the unknown.
Hardcover 272 pages 2024
