Prayer to the Spirit that Animates All Things

For the past several years, I have participated in a sharing blessing practice with some of my Natural Dreamwork colleagues. The practice was developed by Rodger Kamenetz and is the subject of his wonderful new book Seeing Into the Life of Things, published in November of 2025 by Monkfish Book Publishing. The idea is simple and yet profound: that paying more attention to images within our dreams, memories, perceptions and imagination offers a kind of natural healing for the emotional and spiritual well being of us humans, a way to open to a depth of feeling and gratitude that can teach us presence and equanimity despite our afflictive emotions. 

Recently Rodger offered a class, teaching from his new book, which I was fortunate enough to be able to take. The following blessing arose out of my work as an animist/druid, centering the images of the natural world as my source for gratitude and my greatest teacher.

Image by Stefano Ianiro

Prayer to the spirit that animates all things

Spirit who lives in all things,
who wears a dress of pebbles and flowers,
bird song and flowing water,
I greet you in the language of breath.

I speak first to the earth beneath me.
Great Mother of patience and bones.
Thank you for holding my weight
without complaint,
for remembering every footstep
and still offering grass.

I greet the water- rivers with moving feelings,
wells with deep memories,
rain that weeps tears of joy and sorrow.
Float my listening inward.
Teach me how to feel without forgetting myself.

I greet the fire- bright, quick teacher of change.
Alive in the sun, in the spark of grace,
in the warmth that gathers people close.
Show me how to transform
without consuming.

I greet the wind- across the void, messengers with many voices.
Enter my lungs and speak clearly.
Carry my words where they belong
and scatter what no longer serves.

I greet the trees- sentinels, upright kin, rooted elders.
Let me borrow your steadiness,
your resilience, yearning towards light.
Teach me how to stand in one place
and still be alive.

To all the beings seen and unseen,
stone-spirits, leaf-spirits, animal spirits,
insect minds, the mycelium pathways
and the quiet presence moving through them all,
I ask not for power, but for relationship.

Let me walk gently among you.
Let my life become an offering of attention.
Let my gratitude be something you can feel,
like rain returning to the soil, opening the inner eye
that sees deeply into the life of all things.

-Originally posted on Laura's dream blog In Search of Puella

Laura Smith-Riva is a certified Natural Dreamwork practitioner and member of the Green Mountain Druid Order in Vermont. She lives between Vermont and Italy where she works remotely with dreamers from many parts of the globe. In her personal work, she is interested in the connection to the natural world through dreams and vision work and offers expressions of her journey using art, poetry and prose.