A performative prayer inspired by St. Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of the Sun and starting with an excerpt from it. Followed by sun salutations, a beautiful Sufi meditation, more sun salutations, and a moment of gratitude. This is a powerful and invigorating prayer that I created while I was living in Seattle and I needed to draw some warmth and light into my life during the long, dark winters. But anyone can benefit from it at any time. Making this a daily practice would be a solid foundation for any spiritual/personal development you want to pursue.

For those who are more serious, a four to five times per day schedule would be recommended based on either the sun’s quarterly positions of dawn, noon, sunset, and midnight, or the Sufi five time per day prayer schedule.

This practice will serve to align you not only internally, but externally, with your surroundings and the universe we are a part of. It will build a feeling of gratitude for the light and warmth of the sun. Something most people take for granted, but without which we would not be alive. We are capable of harnessing that to fill us with joy and love. The point is to invoke that love and energy from something as readily available as the sun and allow that to inspire you to share that light, warmth, and love with others. This won’t just benefit you. This will bless everyone around you.

Invocatio Solis

Opening

Turn towards the sun, or to the East. Close your eyes and place your hands, palms together, at your heart. Then, raise your hands and head up.

Sun Salutations

Breath in deeply, raising your arms up over your head, then exhale and fold forward, keeping the spine long, and place your hands down in front of your feet or on your shins.

Breath in and lift your chest up and forward to a flat back. Exhale and fold forward again placing your hands down.

Inhale and step your feet back into a plank position. Exhale while slowly lowering yourself to the ground onto your belly.

Inhale and lift your head and chest up into cobra, then exhale and press into your palms, lift your hips up and back into downward dog. Look forward and walk or hop your feet up to your hands.

Inhale and lift your chest up and forward to a flat back. Exhale and fold forward, then bend your knees, inhale, and come up to standing.

Repeat this three times. Bringing your focus entirely into your breath and body and feeling the warmth of the sun on your skin.

Meditation

Turn your back to the sun and find a comfortable seated position for meditation. Take three deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth, letting your body relax more deeply with each exhale. Start by paying gentle attention to your breath. Don’t try to control it, just observe. With every exhale visualize all of your fear, envy, lust, clinging, greed, and other afflictions discharging as a cleansing feeling, beginning in the hands and feet, flowing into the body, through the heart and out the left nostril.

Then, with each inhale, breath the radiant light in through your right nostril, up into the point between your eyebrows, further upwards to the crown of your head, then flowing down into your heart. The words La illaha, or The “I” is an illusion, should accompany each exhale, and Il’ Allahu, or God alone is real, each inhale. Repeat this process until it becomes effortless, and you begin to feel the ebb and flow of the universe around you as your consciousness expands. Once you are completely cleansed, and filled with love and light, open your eyes and stand up.

Sun Salutations

Turn towards the sun and perform three more sun salutations. Then stand with your eyes closed and your hands, palms together, in front of your heart. Take a moment of gratitude and observe the state of your mind and body.

❤🙏☀