I absolutely love collecting these kinds of things (almost as much as I love collecting quotes) and I figure that as long as I’ve bothered retyping or saving them, I might as well share them via my blog—that way more people can possibly benefit from or enjoy them!

Invocation:

Mother of the Medicine Wheel (from Sage Woman issue 81)

By Sharon Blessum

In the womb of the East Lodge

She gives birth in the morning.

She mothers us with smiles and songs.

In the strong sun of the South

She offers food from Her garden,

Enchantment for the mid-day of life.

In the benediction of the West

She colors evening with sunset

Wraps us in reflections of day.

In the old age of the North Lodge,

She will hold us in sweetness

Cross with us into the Land of the Ancestors.

—-

Opening Words/Chalice Lightings

May we be reminded here of our highest aspirations,

 and inspired to bring our gifts of love and service to the altar of humanity.

 May we know once again that we are not isolated beings

 but connected, in mystery and miracle, to the universe,

 to this community and to each other.

-Anonymous (Reading #434 in Singing The Living Tradition)

—-

Or (not sure of the source for this one, I had it jotted on a little piece of paper):

With the kindling of this flame,

We honor the mysteries and riddles that prompt us to ask questions;

We give thanks for community, in which we can seek their answers;

And we open our hearts and minds to our great and many freedoms.

—

Introductory Reading/Welcome

The Gaze of Love: A Body-Loving Invitation to all Women, by Patricia Lynn Reilly

Today, and everyday, let’s turn toward other women’s bodies, and our own, with mercy and unconditional acceptance, letting go of the competition and scrutiny-based sizing up of each other, letting go of the subtle put-downs and diminishments when we’re threatened by each other, allowing healing attention to flow one to another until the gaze of love heals us.

A gaze of love, calling wise women with their beautiful silver hair and life-lines out of hiding; inviting our smart, gifted daughters to reject the tyranny of thinness and to cease from harming themselves; welcoming the full, rounded bodies of our friends, bodies that refuse to be battered into shape by diets and admonishments.

A gaze of love so powerful, so encompassing, embracing the whole community of women, all sizes, shapes, colors, ages, and languages, with the widest welcome, the deepest affirmation, the highest calling, the loudest YES.

A gaze of love, inspiring us to bite into LIFE and the fullness of its possibility, to express LIFE through us in color and shape, sound and movement, to honor LIFE by turning our body-loving energy toward projects of justice, relationships of comfort, strategies of  wellness, and words of affirmation.

Knowing we’re all in this together.
One breath. One body. One life. And so it is.