Prayer Faire - Day 2 - 15 February 2012

Welcome to Day Two of Prayer Faire - Mardi Gras Style, brought to you by The Prayer Cafe at 29 Gifts!

 

Today's Topics:

(a) Interpretation of Symbols and

(b) What Costume and Mask are you wearing in Life's Parade?

 

Let us begin with a Prayer of Dedication:

 

Dearest Precious Spirit -

 
Holy Creator of All Life - it is with remarkable and profound Gratitude we place ourselves in humble Service through You today.

 

As we behold Your Creation today, make us Open and Receptive to Your Grace and Goodness, Your Divine Healing Presence.

 

Help us to open our minds to new ideas and realizations about ourselves and our place in the world, our families and friends and what agreement we have made with our Souls in how we show up in this place and time.

 

May we also realize that the very ground where we stand now is Sacred Ground - made Holy by Your Promise of Truth, Justice, and Honesty.

 

The air around us is permeated with Your Creation. Light reflects off every corner, sparking adoration from within our hearts as we once and for all decide to give up the pretenses of who we think others want us to be and who we Really Are - Divine Reflections of You.

 

Thank You, Holy Spirit, for making us Aware of the Signs and Symbols You have placed before us; let us not turn away with disregard, but Face Forward and Embrace the Future we can Create with You, Beloved One.

 

Make us Truly Instruments of Your Peace and Grace, Most Precious Spirit...

 

Amen.

 

(a)  Today, we will look at some of the Components of Mardi Gras Celebration, which we will adapt to The Prayer Cafe standards and interpret spiritually so to come to a greater understanding of what they can mean beyond their physical appearance. I will list some components and what they mean traditionally, and then will provide my interpretation and how to relate to it spiritually. You can research these items to go deeper into their history and how it all got started.

 

As you read about each component, just take in the information without any judgment, even if you’ve been to a Mardi Gras event (other than Prayer Faire). Then read my interpretation a time or two, take what makes sense, and if it seems a little strange, just go with it – keeping your mind open to how it could relate to you. Going beyond the surface of a thing to understand it means we suspend what we think we know about it and allow new ideas to be revealed.

 

* Mardi Gras ends on Fat Tuesday (this year, 21 February 2012). Conventional celebration includes people dressing up in costumes and masks and joining in parades and eating rich, fatty foods before the ritual fasting of the Lenten Season which begins on Ash Wednesday, 22 February.

         

My interpretation:  For hundreds of years, people have been giving themselves “permission” to literally go wild with partying and being outrageous – some resources say “anything goes” at Mardi Gras. All this before Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, when those same people devoutly turned to fasting and prayer to be absolved of their revelry. To me, this is like going out on Friday night, getting drunk and acting wild, then going to confession on Saturday and church on Sunday to be relieved of responsibilities from the night of abandon.

 

A spiritual interpretation could reveal an attitude in people of faith who think no matter how they act, if they repent on a certain day or through a certain ritual, it’s okay to be as crazy as they want. While to a degree this may be true, if we want to live and move and have our Awareness of Divinity, we will become conscious of those activities where we give ourselves up to the moment of revelry, of carrying-on for the sake of carrying-on because the penance is coming. It’s almost as if we act out now because we know we’ll be paying the piper later.

 

A new behavior could be making conscious choices to not give up our control or power in the first place (except to follow God’s Will), and to look towards spiritual ritual and ceremony as something to be ready and prepared for, not debauched and in a stupor. I am not criticizing anyone if their conscious choice is to participate in such an activity, but I am encouraging everyone to make conscious choices that will benefit your life. There is nothing wrong with dressing up and dancing and having a good time. But we want to be Aware of our behaviors and keep them in line with the bigger vision we have of our lives.

 

The key:  Make Conscious Choices you can be proud of and that increase your Spirit.

 

* The traditional colors are purple, green, and gold; more than just flashy colors, they have specific meaning:

     Purple = Justice

     Green = Faith

     Gold = Power

 

My interpretation:  I was actually glad to see the traditional meanings of the colors – they are well placed. Purple is by reputation a royal and sacred color signifying spiritual development. “Justice” in its right use is a good representation of purple.

 

Green’s meaning is “Faith.” Certainly green is a color of wholeness, health, wealth and prosperity, growth. Faith is also a good meaning for it, for by Faith all these things come to us:  wholeness, health, wealth and prosperity, and growth.

    

Gold means Power; this is another good meaning, for we have assigned respect to real gold for generations upon generations. Alternatively, he who has the gold has the power is also true, but when we seek to possess and express gold values of Justice and Faith, we will grow in our own Power.

 

* Doubloons are brightly colored metal or plastic coins commemorating Mardi Gras (each year has different design on the coin, along with that year's theme, making it a collector’s item). People love collecting beads and coins. For the Prayer Faire participants, your beads come in the form of your Daily Beads of Blessing, and special Doubloon Affirmations will be provided later for your use (you will be able to print them out or view on your computer screen).

 

My interpretation:  the coins are souvenirs of the event; mentally, we assign value to “coins” of any kind. Mardi Gras Doubloons are commemorative for each year, giving special significance to that event. Likewise, in our own lives, we can commemorate each year of our lives as unique and special, taking away mementos and keepsakes for that year alone because it is unlike any year before it or to come after it.

 

 The Doubloon Affirmations to be provided later will give you the value you assign to them; the Affirmations will mean different things to you at different times in your life, but will always hold significance for the 2012 Prayer Faire Mardi Gras event at 29 Gifts.

 

* King's Cakes are small cakes served during Mardi Gras; it is said the person who gets the cake with the "baby" inside is the one to host next year's party or who is crowned King and/or Queen of the current year’s celebration. The King's Cake represents the Three Kings who brought gifts to Baby Jesus.

 

My interpretation:  Cake is served in celebration; we have birthday cakes, anniversary cakes, and all kinds of cakes to signify or honor a special event. Later this week, you will be given a recipe for making your own Mardi Gras King’s Cake, if you so desire, and the significance it will hold for you will be personal. You may make it with reverence, in gratitude to GodSpirit for all your abundance and resources. Serve it to honor the King and Queen of your own Castle, better yet, the One King, Holy Creator, a gift in celebration of all you have been given in this life, the good, the bad, and the indifferent. Why would you serve a cake to honor these events?

 

Why wouldn’t you?

 

 

(b) What Costume and Mask are you wearing in Life's Parade?

 

Mardi Gras participants dress up in often gaudy, even freakish costumes, wear identity-concealing masks to hide their party behavior.

 

The Truth, however, is no costume or mask can hide the realness of who you are on the inside, of who God created you to be. Man or woman, senior or child, we are all part of the One, and nothing will hide that fact; neither can the costume hide our behaviors, which will ultimately be revealed.

 

Take a look at how you relate to others in your life. Are you wearing a different mask every day? Is your costume a little tight? Is it too loose? When you look in the mirror, what do you see? Can you look into your own eyes and behold the Divine Being that you really are? Can you take off the costume of your pretense and be honest for one whole day? (This does not mean hurtful or crude, but just honestly being yourself.)

 

Before we start looking at unveiling the masks on Days 4, 5, 6, and 7, think about the masks you wear. The mask reflected in your mirror; the mask you wear for your family – is it the same as the one you wear for your friends? What about at work, school, or at the grocery store?

 

Do you wear a mask of religion that hides the Sacredness of your Spiritual Self? Did you know there’s a difference?

 

Just think about it – you don’t have to make up your mind right now. Be open to defining your own interpretation.

 

 

TODAY'S BEADS OF BLESSING: "You are not alone. When you look behind the mask, you will find everyone around you has similar experiences and we’re all not so different after all."