Author: Monique

 

 

Drinking Sky: An Autumn Ritual for Deepening

 

There is an exquisite poetry in the ways heaven and earth devotedly flow back into one another, like divine lovers losing and finding each other over and again. Through their undying love, the Ceremony of Life continues through the turning of each season. Each one of us is a participant in this great love affair.

We have just crossed the threshold into fall and the full moon is pulling the ocean of our inner tides in ways that can be unsettling. Yet amidst this turmoil is a quiet reflectiveness under the grey sky. A light breeze is lyrically undressing the yellowing leaves from Weeping Birch’s smooth, silvery body while rain spills all around like gentle tears, embraced by earth upon its return home. I feel how this simple witnessing opens some movement within and I find a way to let go into this transition, settling more deeply into my body. Stillness. Quiet. Completion. Continue reading “Drinking Sky: An Autumn Ritual for Deepening” →

 

 

Becoming Human

 

And the moment arrives when I reach the limits of my mortal heart. A murmuration of starlings burst from the inside out through lips, eyes, and ears while my body dissolves into all six directions.

I can finally see what I have been missing all along, although it has never left me. Mystery’s ears harken to the sound of silence and I hear my own voice for the first time, singing. Rivers of tears gather into oceans of unfathomable depth, and dismembered flesh transforms into a Land of Plenty.

Something uncoils from deep within moving me to carve pathways down into the fecund soil. My tongue smells what my nose cannot as I feel my way on my belly through the dark, not knowing what I am looking for but trusting this pull that guides from the inside. Continue reading “Becoming Human” →

Painting By Meinrad Craighead 1983, Wisdom

 

Lodestone: Heart of the Pilgrim Soul

 
 
“When I reach through the hole at my center the gift eludes my grasp. Whatever it may be,
I can possess it only as that mystery which beckons from the greatest distance and draws
my heart deeper into the quest.

The journey waxes full and then wanes dark, again and again. I stare into my hole focusing
on a single point, waiting for her to dart wildly through my landscape.”

Meinrad Craighead artist (1936 – 2019)1

 

There is something that pulls us ever-forward to the heart of our own mystery. In an unending pilgrimage our life journey orients homeward, centered in a world that we know and one in which we cannot fully know. As unseen forces guide us over each threshold, the inner muse arouses the creative impulse allowing life to continuously be revealed to itself. But never completely.

Lodestone means ‘leading stone’ or ‘way stone’. It is a magnetic stone use by ancient sages, seers, and alchemists for divination and then later in compasses because of its ability to orient toward to the north star. It is found near the surface of the earth and is thought to be magnetized by lightning strikes. From the invisible realm the heavens touch the earth, impregnating it with a polarized force stable enough to guide us through the endless cycles of birth and death so that we may discover something enduring.

The heart of the pilgrim lives in the overlapping space between surrender and discipline, compelled by mystery. Following the path of water between heaven and earth we travel embedded within the dream time of natural and preternatural realms. Through the labyrinthine caverns of physical reality, human and other-than-human beings offer nourishment and clues. Within this sacred communion, medicines are shared. Continue reading “Lodestone: Heart of the Pilgrim Soul” →