Communion

Three of us are spending the weekend at our friend's new home on the edge of a meadow that inclines toward a deep wood.  A sea of long grasses, wild daisies, and purple thistles wave in the soft breeze.

I have pictures of the woods, but they don't capture it's deep soul.  Rock walls weave and tumble alongside canopied trails.  Boulders hunch their massive shoulders.  Trees soar skyward.

It feels like a cathedral in here.  I wonder if architects of old-world churches  aspired to imitate places like these, where we naturally feel reverence.

Vaulting arches, graceful columns, and lofty domes can only hope to capture the energy of the deep forest.


We devise a simple ritual expressing our acceptance of something lost and welcoming infinite potential -- untold possibilities -- to flow into each one of us and our sisterhood. Papers feed flames until only ashes remain. We carry the ashes into our sacred environs, releasing them into the running waters.

The current whisks them away. As if their mission is urgent.

The waterways of the earth are her veins and arteries, carrying our offering across the body of the planet.  This stream -- infused with our intentions for wholeness and healing -- will join other tributaries on it's journey to the great oceans where our gift may be received by the world.

Thus the land receives our sacramental offering to the Spirit of All Life.  Our modest ceremony connects us to mysterious creative forces in ways we have yet to appreciate.

 

Something was initiated today, in communion with these treasured friends and and Mother Earth. Releasing ashes of something that once was, with full hearts and healing intentions for all, somehow quickens the phoenix waiting to be born.

Amen!