About this site

Prayer is like planting a little seed of a dream. So often our prayers point toward little dreams within ourselves for how we or the world might be different. With faith we put a prayer into the ground and hope that our dream might sprout and someday grow into something bigger and more beautiful than we’d even dreamed to begin with. I believe in the power of prayer. Even if the seed never sprouts, I believe paying attention to our deepest yearnings, our fears, our grief, our rage, our need for help and mercy, our gratitude and hope–and then naming them through prayer–is in itself a powerful act. 

In the summer of 2021 I read Pádraig Ó Touma’s Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community*, a beautiful collection of prayers that resonated with me deeply. In the introduction Ó Touma introduced a type of prayer called a collect, which I found to be a simple and poetical form of prayer that deeply engages and enlivens my soul. Later in the  introduction, Ó Touma likens prayer to making soup (another metaphor I love) and while we might find the recipes of others prayers useful, you ultimately have to make “your own damn soup, because only you can make it. You know your own needs, or you will.”

And so I decided to make my own soup–or plant my own seeds, if you will– and commit to writing at least one collect prayer daily. This commitment coincided with a personal reckoning with my tendency to hide in life, to go with the flow and stay passively and comfortably in the background. This site is an attempt to plant my seeds in a garden bed a bit bigger than the notebook I keep on my bedside table. It is a commitment to sharing more of myself, as well as welcoming and moving through the fear and discomfort that will inevitably arise in doing so.

So with all that aside…welcome! I hope this site might also be an invitation to plant our own seeds, make our own soup, or whatever metaphor speaks to you for praying, for naming your dreams. 

*Corrymeela Community is Northern Ireland’s oldest peace and reconciliation organization. I had the privilege of visiting Corrymeela while studying abroad during college.

About me

Hello. I’m Ashton, an aspiring gardener, introverted, book lover, mom of two. I’m a west coast native who has now lived on the east coast for nearly a decade. I love to hike, cook, and spend time outside with my spouse, our little ones, and our dog, goats, and chickens in our little corner of central Jersey.

Genesis 1:11-13

God spoke: “Earth green up! Grow all varieties
of seed bearing plants,
every sort of fruit bearing tree.” And there it was.
Earth produced green seed-bearing plants,
all varieties, and fruit-bearing trees of all sorts. God saw that it was good. It was evening. It was morning.
Day Three.

Ecclesiastes 3

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Genesis 2:6-7

…God formed man out of dirt from the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, The man came alive–a living soul! Then God planted a garden in Eden, in the east. He put the man he had just made in it, God made all kinds of trees grow from the ground, trees beautiful to look at and good to eat.