Blessed Sisters

As my feet settled into the rich soils of the earth, I realized I was not far from the empty tomb. While my body stood still, my heart yet danced with the Wild Christ and my soul stirred with the vision of Imma in all her many splendors. The Risen Christ was no longer set before my eyes, but I knew he would always be with me.

I turned and witnessed the rapture on the faces of my companions. Joanna, Mary of Clopas, Salome, and Susanna stood enraptured, their eyes locked to the place where the Risen Christ greeted me.

“Blessed Sisters,” I said to them, “Have you seen the glory of the Lord?”

They answered in one voice, “Holy, Holy, Holy One. God of power, God of Might. Heaven and earth are filled with your glory. Hosanna in the highest.”

As they spoke, I heard the voices of the seraphim with them as all the world rejoiced in this blessed day.

“Our eyes are open, our hearts are healed,” I said with joy. “We are called to a holy work. Blessed be the apostles of the resurrection, who carry life and witness to those who hear the voice of the Shepherd.”

“Blessing and blessed are the children of the Light,” the women said in unison.

I responded, “The heart that was stilled by the cruelty and hate of empire, beats again in the great life of the world. This same heart now beats in us and in all we share the message with. One heart undefeated by scorn and villainy, beating in all the children of the Word, Light, and Presence.”

No Grave Could Hold His Light

I turned to the first woman and said, “Blessed Joanna, healed and made free, the Living Christ called you from the courts of earthly power. Blessed is the good news you carry from the empty tomb. You turned wealth into mercy, privilege into service, and mourning into witness. Holy Joanna, conqueror of the lords of Babylon, help us to resist the powers of fear, place all we possess in the service of liberation, and speak the truth of resurrection until every captive is free.”

Joanna bowed in grace and said, “I saw the Risen Christ not far from where you were standing. Light shone from him expelling the darkness from the world. Darkness fled from his unconquerable light. No shadow fell upon his glorious visage and his breath filled the worlds with life. No grave could hold his unconquered light, since the name of the Holy is upon him.

“He spoke to me and said, ‘Joanna, who supported my work while I was with you in body, continue as I am with you in spirit. The Kin-dom has come. Tell others what you have witnessed, and call the people home.’”

The grace of her testimony blessed my heart, and the world greened as she spoke. In blessing, we parted so the world might know the glory of the Risen Christ.

The One Who Holds It Together

I turned to the second woman and said, “Blessed Mary of Clopas, faithful sister of our Lady and steadfast disciple, the grace of Christ strengthened you to remain at our side. Blessed is the love that carried you toward the sealed tomb. You followed Jesus from Galilee, and served the kin-dom well. You stood beside Mother Mary when the sword pierced her heart. You watched where the wounded body was laid. Holy Mary of Clopas, witness of the cross and bearer of resurrection, help us to remain beside those who suffer, serve without seeking recognition, and walk in love.”

Mary clasped her hands over her heart and said, “When I arrived I saw an angel sitting within the empty tomb. He told me the Christ had risen. My heart leapt, and I turned and saw my nephew standing with you. My thoughts drifted to my brother-in-law, Joseph, and I wished he could have lived to see this day, but I knew he lived too. The Christ will remain with us always through all our struggles and joy. In His arms and heart we shall always live.

“As I watched him, I remembered the boy who modeled the clay and sought the wisdom of his Father. Now, he stood, not just as a man, but as a wellspring of life, light, and wisdom. He remains, so we may be strong, and grow together in the kin-dom.”

The grace of her testimony moved me, and I wondered about the Christ as a boy, and the life he lived before we knew him. Mystery invited me in and I gave thanks to Mary. In blessing we parted, so the world might know the steadfast love of the One who sustains it and holds it together.

The Great Circle of Life

I turned to the third woman and said, “Blessed Salome, faithful disciple and seeker of wisdom, the grace of Christ transformed your longing and made service a path to wholeness. Blessed are the questions that opened your heart to truth. You followed Jesus through Galilee. You sustained his companions with your labor. You loved your children fiercely and learned that greatness is not dominion, but service. You stood before the cross. You carried spices toward the tomb without knowing who would move the stone. Holy Salome, witness of suffering, questioner at the table, and herald of the undivided life, teach us to transform our ambition into service, our grief into compassion, and our questions into wisdom.”

Salome raised her palms to the heavens and said, “I saw you with the Risen One, standing at his right hand, and I understood the answer to my prayer most fully. It was not for me to ask who would be at our Lord’s left and right side, but to wait for it to be made known. As when he walked among us in flesh and blood, I now know that he will be with us always, all of us, not just a few. All are chosen, but not all come to sit at our Lord’s table.

“I watched him with you, and it was as if the two of you danced through the heavens and the earth, even though you stood and talked as you and I are now. What a mystery. What a wonder that has been revealed to us this day. Every day, from morning to night, may we live as close kin to the Living One, and to one another in the great circle of life.”

The grace of her testimony moved me, and I saw the face of the Risen One reflected in her eyes. In blessing we parted, so the world might seek the mysteries of kinship with God in Christ.

Living Sacraments of His Grace

I turned to the fourth woman and said, “Blessed Susanna, healed by Christ and called into his life. Blessed is the generosity that became bread, shelter, and communion. You followed Jesus along the roads of Galilee and offered what was yours. You learned that spirit moves through matter, that grace takes flesh, and that care is not beneath the work of God, but is the work. Holy Susanna, bearer of the Living Christ, teach us so our healing may become our path, our possessions may become our communion, and our hidden labor may release light into the world.”

Susanna cupped her hands before her and said, “I watched him converse with you and with every word he uttered, light and healing flowed from him into the world. I knew at once he is truly the Way, the Truth, and the Life. His voice reverberated within me. Sweet joy of my life, he will walk with us through all the paths we will go.

“The healing he worked in me still lives and rushes forth to heal others. His blessing makes us living sacraments of his grace. We must strive to ever be the blessing of grace to all those around us as we live in this world and into the next.”

The grace of her testimony moved me, and I welcomed it to wash over me. In blessing we parted, so the world might circulate with the blessings of God.

Life More Abundantly

I looked back at the empty tomb, and a white raven stood at the opening. It pecked the ground three times and cawed, before taking flight. My spirit leapt within me, and my breath stilled.

Slowly, I turned back to the path and took my first steps from this place. Each footfall rooted deep within the earth while my heart soared high into the heavens. My heart beat steady and strong. With each beat, an angel ran up through my body, then down through my body. It was like they danced in a great circle between heaven and earth within me.

This place was holy, as was every place my foot touched. This wasn’t because of my presence, but because the Christ lived there. In the dust and the grass, in the stone and the soil, Christ lives there. All the land was holy, as was the air, the seas, the lakes, and the rivers. I could hear him laugh in the light of the sun, and weep in the rain.

Every step carried me deeper into him. Every moment brought me home.

Now, the task was clear, to find the apostles in the places they hide and the disciples along the way and to tell them the good news. Relationships do not end at death. The One we followed in life is still with us and will always be. He lives, even though the force of empire poured its wrath out upon him, crushing his body in hopes of extinguishing his light.

This light has always been, from before the very beginning, and shall always remain. Dance in its glory, and find the life and peace that is ever there.

Speak the Word in season and out, and he will always be with us. The Word is life, and life more abundantly.

Leave a comment

You were not born broken. Fifteen billion years of the universe’s grace says otherwise, and this book shows you how to live from that. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer, foreword by Matthew Fox.

Planted in the Deep

As I grew in my greening, I sang a song of wonder:

Blessing of Abba in flame and sky,
He shines in the ever-glowing glory.
Blessing of Imma in stillness and soil,
She grew green in the branch and the root.

Mother Shekhinah, Sabbath Queen,
Life-giver and Living Stream,
Open your glory for all to see,
So as I live in you, you grow in me.

And I saw from before the beginning when all was fresh and new, when the Holy stood in the congregation over the deep where the tanninim swam and Rahav churned in the depths. The One Life drove a great pole in the deep, planting her in the heart of all, and she rooted there. As the Spirit blew over the deep the tanninim roared and Rahav gnawed at the root. The cosmos flared into being. As it grew, the roots spread through the fertile soils of all that was coming into being, from dust to cloud, to star.

In time, the One Life planted a garden in the east of Eden. A shoot sprang up from the root and blossomed into the Tree of Life. With it, the Holy planted the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

I marveled at the splendor of the Tree of Life, and she said:

Blessed Child, I have watched before the beginning, and reveled in all my children as they played under the protection of my limbs. My joy is ever with the living. But time and again, my heart broke as my children were taken from me.

Wave after wave of life ebbed and receded from the face of the earth. Time and again my children came and went, but life is resilient, and surged back into the world. I watched the dance of life and death through countless ages.

When the children of the red clay ate from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they were driven from Eden so they might not eat of my fruit and live as the gods.

I wept as they left, but they did not forget. Enosh called upon HaShem, and called up a shoot from my roots. My memory lived with the people, and they planted poles and standing stones in my honor, and my grove grew and prospered.

Then the people demanded a king to rule them, and the Holy resisted them, but like any loving father, he knew they needed to make their own mistakes and learn from them, so he relented. The people suffered. They did not forget the Name or the tree of life.

One King arose named Josiah, and he coveted the devotion that rightly belonged to the One Life. He killed the priests and prophets. He burned the temples. He cut down my groves and burned all remembrance of me. Even slaughtering the horses of the sun did not slake his lust for power, so he challenged the greater powers around him and died with the hopes of his people at the Mount of Megiddo. The power hungry, the greedy, and the fearful worry about that same fate to this very day.

The seeds of life grow with Divine fervor, but the lords of Babylon seek to sow the seeds of their own destruction when it does not have to be that way.

I have never left. My presence has always been with the people, in the sabbath and the new moon. I am always with you.

The Altar and the Tent

My children remember Abraham and Sarah, whose children are as numerous as the stars of the heavens. They sojourned from their home following the call of the One Life.

Four times Abraham set up a standing stone to Abba, and Sarah set up a tent for me. My presence was with her.

At the oak of Moreh at Shechem, Abraham set up a stone for HaShem, who appears and promises. My light filled Sarah’s tent like a thick fog and flowed into the people. They saw my presence in oaks, and the Tree of Life grew among them.

Again, at the oaks of Mamre at Hebron, Abraham set up a stone for HaShem, who gives dwelling and communion. Sarah set up her tent. The temple was among the trees and in the tent as it would be until the fallen king.

I lived with them as they lived the One Life. Together we strove against the fear and powers arrayed against them. They are the foundation. They are the root. In them and their children, the Tree of Life prospers.

At the altar and tent, my children know me and the One Life will ever be remembered.

The Family Where All Are Kin

Among the children of Abraham and Sarah, the Tree of Life grew strong. Storms raged, battles ravaged, they were taken captive and freed, but through it all they persisted. They sang the songs of awe. They held the peace of silence. They built and they struggled for liberty. Through it all, the tree blossomed and fruited.

In all the shadows and light, my children remembered the names and spoke them with delight.

When the Christ opened the way, he opened a way so others might be grafted into the root of Abraham and Sarah. Their children multiply, even now. All who dance with the Wild Christ are their children, worshiping at his altar and in her tent.

The covenant is the family where all are kin. There is nothing special in the blood, the true life flows through relationships of one to another, and the one to all things. In the grafting of the covenant, the branch is more firmly joined to the root, and both prosper from the connections.

Where my presence is called, the tree shall grow. From the beginning, until now, through the ages everlasting, the tree of life shall grow new and renewed in every generation.

The Tree of Calvary

When I marvel at the stump of Jesse from which David and his line grew, cut down by the rashness of the fallen king, I watched as the tree of Calvary rose up. It cut the wood so no king could claim the name for themselves.

The nails driven into the precious Christ and the tree cut open the way to graft those who went with him into the root of Abraham and Sarah.

This is the way of life: What is cut down will rise again when the opportunity is right. When the time comes for life to return, it finds its way back into the world so it might prosper.

My pole is planted again in the sanctuaries of the way, but my name will echo in the ears of the wise. From candle stem to standing stone, I will not be forgotten. My presence returns on every sabbath, and dances with the people at the new moon.

Arise with me. Arise with the Wild Christ, Arise with the Glories of Life.

The Triple Blessing

I watched you dance, blessed anointer, from your youth to the empty tomb. As Christ is the dancer, I am the ground you danced upon.

Behold the great Tree of Life, my branches move and turn with the winds of the Spirit. I am the presence, the light in which He dances.

He danced in the beginning before foundations were laid, and through the garden where I sprouted. He spirals through the lands far and wide, scattering wisdom in His wake.

All life grows from my boughs. The spirits are like birds on my limbs. My leaves clap the rhythm of the dance. By the light of my bark, the nights are made easy. Under my shade, their days find the rest and relief.

Come to me, o children of the sky, the sea, and the earth, and find your joy with me. Receive the cloud blessing from breath of the sky, the fish blessing from the bounty of the sea, and the fruit blessing from the wealth of the earth. A triple blessing for the thrice blessed, in heart, in mind, and in spirit.

Beneath the Soil

I smiled at the words of the great Tree of Life and pondered them in my heart. The triple blessing called to me, and I sang her praises.

Then I beheld the whole of the world. In every place I looked, I saw a tree of life growing. Some were strong, others were besieged by the lords of Babylon.

The brilliance of the light from leaves and stems of the trees shone throughout the world. As bright as stars, as soft as the moon, and as glorious as the sun, the trees grew and cared for the people.

It seemed very strange to me that there were so many trees. Then my eyes were opened and I beheld beneath the soil.

A web of roots from that first pole planted before the dawn wrapped around and embraced everything. It was all one tree with many trunks, each suited to the soils and climate in which it grew. One Life, One Power, One Wisdom, escaping words and traps laid out before it.

Each lived its life with the people under its boughs. They sheltered the living, but didn’t fence them in to conform them to one vision.

Oh, the varieties of life fostered by the Wild Spirit whose Presence brings the Light. Everyone hears her voice in their own language and in their own way.

Glory to the One Light from which comes all the colors of the world.

Tending the Grove

Wisdom blossomed in my mind: Tending to the greening of your own heart and the grove where you live. Give no thought or worry for the grove of others. Live in the light granted to you, don’t steal the light granted to others.

As the viriditas greens the land, I cultivate the verdure of my spirit.

Oh, Imma, when you knock on the door, I will let you in. May we ever dance in the shadow of the moon. Let us grow together in the kinship of the One Life forever.

Sweet children of the way, graft yourself onto the tree of life, and take your strength from One who is your source. Take my hand and dance with the Christ through the branches of life following all the ways they may grow.

Leave a comment

Viriditas. The greening power. Hildegard knew it. The forest knows it. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer is for everyone who has ever felt the divine moving through roots and rain and refused to call that feeling anything less than holy.

The Reaching Hand and the Dance

The path felt harder under my feet as I walked with the other myrrhbearers toward the tomb. The lonesome sabbath had ended. His life had ended. Our hopes and fears warred with each other for days, yet hope persisted. In the light of the morning sun, we walked in silence. Our heartbreak and sweet memories joined us on the way.

Someone had rolled the stone away from the entrance to his tomb. His body wasn’t there.

Terror gripped me. My hope fell before my fear. Who took him and why?

I raced off. I can’t say why. The thought of finding his body didn’t enter my mind. Nothing did. He was gone, and now he was taken away.

In the distance, I saw the form of a gardener and called out to him, “Do you know where they took him?”

When I saw his face, my heart fell deep into the earth then sprang into the highest heaven.

“Rabboni!” I called out to him as I stretched out to touch him.

He smiled at me, and said, “Do not cling to me.”

He did not recoil, but stepped closer. “Do not pull away.”

As I gazed into his risen glory, I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to scream, jump, run, and celebrate, all at the same time.

A gentle breeze blew through, and he turned with it.

I turned with it, and my heart leapt.

Together, we wended with the wind. Joined in awe, the heavens and the earth opened around us and we flew with abandon in the flow of life. My spirit and his entwined, without edge or boundary.

It was then I knew I could not seal him back in body as it had been before, just as he could not be contained by the tomb.

The Christ is wild, free and flowing through all that is, was, and ever shall be. He cannot be held, but joined in the dance.

We danced as one through the Glory and the Presence. Then I heard him say my name, “Mary.”

Life surged through my body. Joy broke out in song.

“Lover and Beloved, Dancer and Dance, what is the name of the moment? Who names the movement? What do you call this? Does it matter?” The Risen Christ asked. “If you cannot dance unless you name the dance, the rhythm itself is pressed so the life is forced from it. Dance free in the power of the Spirit. She flows from where no one knows to where it must be discovered along the way. When the dance is fixed and freedom rendered from it, it is like bread left to go stale. Seek the Spirit, and she will guide you through life to the unexpected glories found along the way.”

The Ascent and Descent of the One Life

In that moment, I saw the Christ as he is: the Word, the conversation between God and all the cosmos. Endlessly creating and caring for creation, caressing the face of every child, be they stars, worlds, sprouts, or creatures, the Christ is there.

The Wild Christ blossoms in the dream of the future and goes to seed in the memory of the past. He is the firstborn of all creation, who plays throughout the endless reel of life.

He spirals up to the heavens to join into the One Life and down into the heart of the earth. Life is not diminished by its many holders, it flourishes in them. This life greens the world, but the greening and the One Life flow together.

The Wild Christ said, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. Our Mother is ever with us. I am the One in whom all things hold together, in every step of the dance, in every breath, in every moment.”

I found myself in the embrace of our Father, in the arms of our Mother, in the Presence of Our God. In Glory, the Presence of the Word sang with many voices. I ascended hand-in-hand with the Wild Christ and descended with him.

Lover and Beloved, Beloved and Lover, each is both to their own eyes.

Apostle to the Apostles

“Living Tower,” the Wild Christ said, “Go to my brothers, and tell them what you have seen. Teach them to dance. Open their eyes so they might see as you do, but do not push them. They are not broken. They are hurt. Heal their wounds, offering only what they need for the Light, Word, and Life to reach them again.”

I went off to seek them out, never leaving the side of the Wild Christ who is present in every ray of light, every shadow, every flower, and every grain of sand. He is in the dust and the rain, the field and the air.

“Oh, Magdalene,” the Wild Christ said, “Apostle to the Apostles, who held grace without clinging to it. Teach them to do the same.”

So I sought them in the city and the country, in the mountain and the valley, by the shore and in the desert. Up the way and down the path, I searched them all out.

As the Watchtower of the Holy One, I sought from the pinnacle and the gate. Climbing the stairs in unending prayer, and descending into the depths of life, I found them all.

I flowed with life throughout the land calling to Life, Glory, and Word. They were my constant companions, dancing with me in all the ways I would go.

The Tomb Could Not Contain Him

To each of the apostles I proclaimed the Living Word:

The hate of Babylon poured out upon Jesus. The fierceness of Mitzrayim drew the life from him. He entered the world to show us life and life more abundant, and left us with the peace that passes all understanding. He taught us the way of love (caritas), and the path we should walk.

Hate could not hold him. Fierce opposition could not destroy him. The Tomb could not contain him. He is alive! He lives!

Their fear, greed, and lust for power scourged his flesh and nailed him to a cross. They crowned him with thorns and stabbed him with a spear. No weapon forged against him could destroy him. They raised themselves above him and fell to the darkness where there is no light.

The Christ is before all things. He played before the Holy One before the cosmos spun into being. The Word echoed over the deep (tehom) as the chaos swirled.

As the Holy One spoke the Word over the deep, the Wild Christ went forth to call the cosmos to arise from the chaos so all things were made.

Who can silence the Voice of the One who is, was, and ever shall be? What hand can cover God’s mouth? Can the Almighty be bound by the snares of the wicked, or the One Life snuffed out like a candle?

No. None has such power or authority, though many claim it. The Word dwelled among us in Jesus, but as he walked the earth the cosmos did not fall apart and creation did not end. The Light and Life of God did not withdraw from the world so only Jesus could live, but dove into life through him so we might see and hear the Light and the Word with our very eyes and ears.

The Crucifixion of Christ could never kill the Living Word. The Tomb is empty. Jesus lives. Christ lives. Life ever flows through the cosmos, reconciling all things to himself, whether on earth or in heaven, things visible and invisible, things touched and felt.

Christ is wild, without bridle or cage. His home is everywhere, and he calls all back home. His grace brings unity, not uniformity. Our foundation is sound and clear: through love we find life and peace.

Gather together to greet the Risen Christ, that death, hate, and fear could not contain. Gather in one accord in his love, for he lives and has never left us.

The Other Sheep of Every Fold

After the Spirit descended on Pentecost, I went out to find the other sheep, not of the fold in Judea and Galilee. Everywhere I went, I saw his face.

I followed the Living Word and the call of the Spirit beyond all boundaries and borders, and yet, I found the face of Christ everywhere I went.

I beheld awe over every hill and by every stream. Warm hearts greeted me along the way and we savored our time together. We spoke the Living Word together, though not always in the same way, but together it made such living music we could abide in its shelter or sojourn in its shade.

Sorrow greeted me at many stops, and we sat through the night and opened to the moment. Even in pain and grief, we found the music of the Living Word. Slow and careful, it guided through the keening, the circles of vigil, and quiet stillness.

Inspiration took me from one place to another and I marveled at the artistry and originality of all that I encountered. The word and image, food and drink, song and story, we shared and created the world anew from moment to moment.

The journey changed me as much as it changed those I encountered as we built the citadels of love and pushed against the injustice and inequity of the greedy, power-hungry, and fearful. In all things, we celebrated our communal joy.

I Am the Greening Passion

I am the anointer of the anointed, the companion of the savior. He is the Word, the Life, and the Light. I am the blessing, the flow, and the radiance. Wisdom and the lover of wisdom, he and I in a mutual dance.

He is the vine, and I am the greenness (viriditas) of the leaves, the sap flowing from root to branch. He does not contain me, and I don’t contain him. I am the greening passion, moving through the whole vine.

As anointer, I bring the blessings, the apostle of the apostles. He is the anointed, the Blessed One honored as the beating heart of love, which is life.

When I saw his face at the tomb, I saw the man he was while he walked with us, but also as the first face I saw as a baby fresh born to all the wonders of the world.

The anointer does not seal and the anointed is not sealed. He is the lamb who breaks the seals so the book of life is open to all. Grace cannot be contained. Grace ever-flows from life to life as love connects us all.

Become Evergreen

Blessed child, seek out the One in whom you live, move and have your being. Once you behold the face of Glory and learn to hear and speak the Living Word, the steps of the dance of life will reveal themselves to you. They are not set so they can be taught. They are free and natural to the graces of your body and life.

Be grafted onto the Vine of Christ and the Root of Abraham until you know you are a branch of both in one body and one spirit.

I shall anoint you and he shall raise you up. The Holy Spirit will fill you and the Sacred Heart shall beat in your chest.

In all you do, seek to be evergreen, drawing on the good soil of the Holy One to grow strong and true. Follow the greening ways and join the great song of the cosmos and the great dance of the Divine.

Seek the ways set out before you, and live in the fold to which you are called. Blossom and green while spreading the glories of life wherever you go. Taste and see that Life is good. Know that the Holy One is in all things and all things are in God.

Follow the guiding winds, and wander to all the places you are called to go. Be free. Live. Become evergreen in wisdom and truth.

At the River

When I sit at the bank of the river, and drag my fingers through the waters, are they cooled by the flow or do they offer their heat to it? Which is refreshed, me or the waters?

I offer my warmth to the waters, and they refresh me. In the life of the river, the little heat I offer may seem very small, but they change the waters and they will never be the same after. The waters also change me, cooling my hand and refreshing my spirit.

The river speaks of change and flow, as she cradles so many lives within and around her. “Blessed Mother,” the waters sang over the stones, “You know and you are known. Blessed and blessed are those who live in accord with the flow.”

I smiled. “You know and are known. You are a person, though not human. You are someone, not something.”

So it is with all the cosmos. Personhood is born in relationship. When only humans or animals are treated as persons, the world suffers. Do not judge a person by their sameness to you. It is easy to respect and honor those who are not different from you. Too many only honor and respect themselves for this reason. Difference and diversity are the nature of life and the cosmos itself. To disrespect and dishonor it is to do the same to yourself.

A being is a person when they can be spoken to and listened for, when they can be honored or wounded, thanked or offended, approached with reverence or violated by neglect. Do not expect them to speak the same language or way that you do. Do not expect them to listen to words alone. In nature and life, actions speak louder than words. Learn to listen and to speak to the multitude around you. Only then can you be faithful to life.

To call a being a person is to confess that we are not alone before them. We are responsible to them, and they are responsible to us. When we care for the river, she gives us life, water, and sustenance. When we neglect our responsibilities to the river, we lose touch with what gives us life. The same is true for the mountains, the valleys, the forests, and the plains. Each relationship is different, and it grows over time.

We are invited into reciprocity, into kinship, into the sacred work of right relationship with all that is. Together, we live life more abundantly.

The Soil Beneath, the Surface Where It Breaks

The soul is a vast field that can be cultivated into a garden of life, left fallow through neglect, or given over to the weeds that choke out the fruit of life.

Scattered throughout this field are many seeds, shining sparks of the light of God spread throughout the world and the soul from the beginning. These seeds are holy and good, born from the original blessing of creation.

The seeds we tend and water grow and bear the fruits of the Spirit and the fruits of Life. Untended, they never sprout, nor do they grow.

These seeds sleep in the soil of the soul and life until they are awakened. Once awakened and freed to grow, they enter the living mind where, when tended, they flourish.

When we tend to this soil and these seeds, we prepare ourselves to live in the Life of God as the Divine Powers flow through us.

Every Spark Is Blessed

The Divine Image is within all things. We are partakers of the Divine Nature. The Light of Life shone into all things and nestled into the fabric of all that is, was, and ever shall be.

Every spark is blessed and holy. Some call them virtues, others energies, but they are all the power of Life to grow, change, make space, and transform the cosmos until all is restored to the unity of God.

These greening powers of viriditas live in all things, including the souls of all living. When they are nourished, peace, joy, wisdom, and justice prosper.

The Shell That Grows Around the Wound

If the seeds of life are sown in all that is, why is there evil, oppression, and suffering?

Pain is a real part of life. It is not punishment or retribution, it is a way of knowing that something is wrong or needs correction. Often, pain is a warning. It can leave wounds, and trauma, and these can grow over the seeds and encase them so they cannot grow.

Not all pain does this, but the kinds that wither, wound, and scar can. These wounds, if left untended, dry out the soil of the soul, drawing the resources and waters of life away from the other seeds that could grow.

This is the grasping power of Siccitas to attach itself to what it should not grasp. When the soil becomes too dry, when the rains come, they cannot soak in.

Shells grow around the seeds, locking the light away so all appears dark and grows dry. They consume the waters of life and pretend they are life.

This dryness is not the sign of a bad root. It is water spent on a husk rather than a seed.

Some of these shells are passed down from generation to generation, and are in some ways cherished as seeds of life. In truth, they are untended wounds that continue to harm the people long after the original wound is forgotten or long passed.

Who Has Come to the Door

When we meet the seeds of graces or shells of temptations within and around us, they are no different from the mountains or the rivers. Just as gold in a stream is a temptation to greed, one of these shells arising within us is a temptation to see it as a grace rather than what it truly is.

These graces and temptations live within us, whispering in our ears like an angel and demon on each of our shoulders.

When these arise, welcome them and grant them the etiquette owed to them, which does not mean that you give in and succumb to them. Temptation does not arise for no reason. It is incumbent upon us to learn to discern between the grace and temptation, and to discern the roots of the temptation.

Once we learn to discern the roots of the temptation, we see the husk for what it is and can then uncover the seed of light it grew around to obscure.

Testing the Coin

“Beloved, don’t believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world (1 John 4:1).” Once you have greeted what has arisen, it is time to discern the power that is speaking.

Saint John Cassian records Abbot Moses’ thought on a saying of Jesus that mattered to their community, “Be skillful moneychangers.” This quote is not found in the canonical Gospels, but in the early church many sayings circulated that were not retained in the Gospels themselves.

To Abbot Moses, this saying taught us a simple discernment practice. We should not accept a false currency and exchange it for a genuine one. O, how many souls have laundered the false coins of temptation and rendered them in the semblance of virtue and grace.

Augustine traded the pacifism and original blessing taught by Christ for the temptation of power offered by the empire which needed a military and a means for controlling others. He and others welcomed in the temptations of Babylon, clothed them in grace, and taught them as virtues.

So how does Abbot Moses show us the means of discernment?

First, recognize if something is truly valuable. This is the beginning of wisdom, that we revere the One who is life, so value is only that which supports the living. Note that it is not a value to an individual life, or that of an insulated, isolated group, but to life in general. If it harms life through division, cruelty, greed, or domination, then it has no value. It is nothing, worthless to the world and to life, and not from the One who sustains all things and holds all things together. Should it pass that test, then we apply the next test.

Second, check if it’s genuine, not a counterfeit. What is a counterfeit grace or virtue? It is one that inflates the ego and puffs up the chest, but that does not invite a turn toward living in the blessed unity of the life of the world. It is not wrong to feel good, but to confuse simple feelings for grace and virtue lessens both of them. Should it pass this test, then we apply the next test.

Third, verify it bears the right image or intention. Our intention, our kavanah, is always rooted in equity and love. These are the very image of living God. Love, which includes and requires equity, is the one grace and virtue against which there is no law. So if the love it bears requires us to hate, look down upon, or withhold love from any, then it does not bear the image of the Living God and does not lead to life more abundantly. Should it pass this test, then we apply the final test.

Fourth, ensure it has the proper weight or substance. True love interferes with injustice with patience, hope, and joy. This is the proper weight or substance. If it teaches you to turn a blind eye from the suffering of others and not bring them relief without condemnation, then it is too light and does not pass the test.

These steps help distinguish truth from deception in various aspects of life. Through this method, we can see the difference between the shell and the seed, the grace and the temptation.

Soulcraft

This greeting of the seed that rises from the root consciousness that makes soil beds of the soul to the living consciousness of the mind or the community, is the beginning of Soulcraft. Soulcraft is the disciplined tending of the soul. This is the Discretio, discernment that gives life its shape and character. It is the tending of the garden within so the tree of life may grow and prosper so fruit of life may be more abundant.

Through the discernment of Abbot Moses, we learn to see the difference between the seed and the shell, but soulcraft does not stop there. The shell is one of the sources of the dryness that robs the greening from the world, claiming it all for itself.

Jealousy is the shell that entraps the seeds of love, community, and fellow feeling. It robs the life from the world and distances the soul from life. The hospitality offered to the shell is rooted in witness and testimony.

Once the shell is recognized, it cannot be destroyed by force, and we don’t indulge the shell for its desires. The shell is tended until it breaks open through enough gentleness so the shell opens to release the seed.

How do we do this? We identify the encrusted seed and feed it until it has the strength to break through the shell and be liberated from the husk. This is a tender task that allows us to green the world and restore the Light of God to the world and heal the wounds and scars of life.

Sent to the Vine

The Christ is the vine and we are branches, and the soul is the great garden of life. When the shells rise, they can come from the wounds of our own lives or those carried in our families or the community in which we live.

Living in this hospitality prevents us from adopting the management or suppression all too common in the dry fields of this world.

Trusting the Spirit, we follow the great flow of life to bring the greening to the sparks and healing to ourselves and the world.

Tend the garden of your souls so the seeds may prosper and the life may be ever-greened.

Leave a comment

Some people pray to a God they no longer believe in because they have not yet found language for the God they do. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer is that language, grown from twenty years of walking the Four Paths.

.

There Was a Man Sent from God

Behold the Light, the Glory of the One in whom we live, move, and have our being. It shines from the beginning and illuminates the minds of all. It is so bright that it blinds the eye to all but itself, but it flows through all things so it hides nothing from the vision.

With eyes closed, the Light bleeds through, colored by the thin veil that overshadows it. Fear covers the eyes so that nothing can be seen but darkness. Greed tints the Light to trick the mind into believing everything belongs to it. Lust for power sets the world on fire in order to claim light for itself. Each of these acts as a will-o’-the-wisp, drawing people away from the way, the truth, and the life of the world illuminated by the Glory. They are not brighter than the Light. They are distractions luring people from the path into the wilderness, so these powers can devour them and claim them as their own.

For this reason, the prophets are sent out into the world and the wilderness. Everyone is a mystic, an artist, and a prophet. The mystic beholds the awe and holds the darkness, making space for the Light to breathe. The artist shapes the heart, mind, and spirit so it can see the Light even when it is obscured. Prophets are light bearers who carry the light into the dark places to illuminate the injustice and harm present, and to show the way back to the path. They are lighthouses, warning of rocks below the dark waters and showing the path to the safe harbor.

There are no great prophets and lesser prophets; all are prophets equal in all dignity. The Word speaks the word. Presence shows up in the moment. Glory radiates in every heart. Each prophet is called to the times they live in. Some times are drier (siccitas) than others. Some times are darker than others. In times like these, prophets must bring forth more water for the parched land and radiate more light to push back the darkness. This greening water and brilliant light are not from the prophet, but from the One they live in and who lives within them.

When the Word, the Light, and the Glory entered into the world, the way needed to be prepared to receive them.

“There came a man, sent from God, whose name was John. The same came as a witness, that he might testify about the light, that all might believe through him. He was not the light, but was sent that he might testify about the light. The true light that enlightens everyone was coming into the world (John 1:6-9).”

John, like the prophets before and after him, bore witness to the Light, shining it into the dark places so that greening might return to the dry places. He did not speak of himself, but of the power that animated him and gave him life. Like all prophets, he allowed the light to shine through him so that it might do its work in the world. The prophet is the lens that focuses the light so the people can see.

Blessed be John, the Baptizer, shoot of the branch that made way for the vine to grow. May the blessings to the way he proclaimed open the way so that the Life of the World might breathe free and green the dry land so that life may flourish.

The Benedictus: The Commission Before the Going Out

Tradition holds that John was born at the beginning of the dry season, around the close of the grain harvest. In ancient Judea, they experienced the seasons differently from what we do today. First was the season of the early rains. This began after the long dry period. It softened the ground for plowing and sowing. The winter was a rainy period when grain grew. The latter rains helped the grain mature. Then, the dry period came, which was the time of harvest.

At the beginning of the dry, harvest season, John was born. Rome’s occupation of Judea and the Galilee parched the land. The Word would soon be born into this world. Zechariah prayed over the baby and said:

“And you, child, will be called a prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people by the remission of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the dawn from on high will visit us, to shine on those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death; to guide our feet into the way of peace (Luke 1:76-79).”

Zechariah calls his son the prophet of the Most High, Elyon. We are all prophets of Elyon. When we think about God, we imagine an exalted Being above all other powers, but that is not what we mean. Elyon is the Most Exalted who is held in the highest esteem. The One who lives in all things and in whom all things live. We exalt Elyon to remind ourselves there is something greater that includes and inhabits us all. It is not that God is above us, but lives through us as we mutually live with each other and with God. God’s exaltation does not mean withdrawal from suffering. Elyon is not above or outside us. Elyon, the Highest, the Most Exalted, is with us in our suffering and in our joy. The sovereignty of Elyon is revealed through mercy, illumination, forgiveness, and peace. The prophet is the hand of mercy, the voice of illumination, the councilor of forgiveness, and the celebrant of joy. Elyon flows through this all.

The prophet goes before the face of the Lord. The face of Elyon shines on and within us all. To go before the face of Elyon is to walk in this mutual presence. We live in God as God lives in us, so we may bring the life and greening of the Holy One to all. Rooted in this mutuality, the prophet sees in the suffering and oppression of others the suffering and oppression of themselves and God. They behold the face of Elyon in everyone and everything. This enlivens their hearts and quickens their strength to stand up to and interfere with the injustices of the world.

When we prepare the ways of Elyon, we clear the paths so they are easy to walk and the channels so life can flow without obstruction. So many things can trip up the path and clog the flow. Decisions we’ve made, wounds inflicted upon us, fear, and hopelessness, each or all of these can cause us to stumble or constrict in life. The work of a prophet is to clear these out in themselves, but also to clear them out in others and in the places they live. No one is perfect, so we do this work together. The mutuality discovered in God and Life is the mutuality of the work we do. We clear together. We heal together. We rebuild together.

As the prophet gives knowledge of salvation to their people by the remission of their sins, they do not point to the errors, the stumbling, the blockage and condemn it. They give people a way to recognize salvation when it arrives. Salvation is the greening of the dry heart and the dry land, the restoration of life to the fullness it should have always had. This is not a knowing we can achieve through study alone, but one we must recognize, experience, and participate in so God’s saving work is actually done in this world and it is restored. Salvation is not a moment or the result of a prayer. Salvation is the healing and deliverance of the heart, mind, and spirit into the fullness of life. The remission of sins is not about forgiveness, it is about releasing our mistakes and returning to the path of light.

When the inward compassion of our God, which will rise from above and illuminate those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, visits us, the people and the land are healed. When we restore the world, we release the light trapped within it so the Glory of God in the Cosmos can be lived by all. This light shows the way and guides our feet into the way of peace. We become lost. We repeat inherited violence. We choose familiar roads of retaliation, fear, superiority, resentment, or control. We may genuinely want peace while continuing to walk patterns that make peace impossible. To live in the rest and wholeness of peace (shalom), we have to grow into the mutual indwelling of God and life so the Glory of God can shine upon us.

The light of God will meet us where fear and death have left us unable to move. The One who animates the cosmos moves each and every one of us into action. The Light will reveal a road shaped by justice, mercy, reconciliation, and shared flourishing, and this mutual indwelling will patiently teach our bodies, our habits, and our communities how to walk it together. This is the way and work of the prophets we are all called to perform.

Be Alive

Do not be afraid, the work is not as daunting as it might sound. A vital soul revitalizes all those around it. Everywhere the green grows, it shelters life under its limbs. Cooperation and mutuality are the nature of life far more than competition will ever be. Fear, greed, and lust for power focus on competition so they might divide and conquer the people and claw from the earth all their heart desires.

Be alive. Don’t just live, be alive. Life is the light that enlivens the world. That is the heart of the prophetic calling. A prophet lives so we all can live. Since we are all called to be prophets, it is our work to be alive, fully alive in our awe, sorrow, suffering, creativity, interference with injustice, and celebration. Life feels, heals, and restores. More than all of these, it supports its own life and all those living around them.

John grew up in a prophetic home, with the spirit of Elijah in and upon him. The call to the desert, to the wilderness drove him from the priestly life of his father to make the way of the Most High clear.

Why did John leave the security of the priesthood and his father’s house for the wilderness? The more he lived God, the easier it was for him to see the suffering of the occupation of Rome, the pain in people’s hearts, and the shadow that covered the land. He left for the wilderness because the people were forced from the way of life by the oppression of the empire strangling their land. It was the place where empire could not follow.

Nature is wild, and in the wildness, in that wilderness, the controlling powers of empire had no hold. He met people where they were and offered them a path back toward life.

In the green lands around the river Jordan, he preached, and he baptized. He washed people in the living waters so they could release their pain, their mistakes, their old lives into the water so it could carry it away. He gave them the experience of liberation so new life could grow in them.

He took their fractured parts into the flow of the river, and pulled the whole person back out. John didn’t transform them by the grace of his words or his actions, he offered them a taste of the graces of nature, forgiveness, and illumination. Each person he baptized now had to tend this refreshed soil of their heart and grow back into the fullness of life.

To transform life we must release the ways that did not work and embrace the way that greens and gives life to those who walk it. If the prophet does not go to the people and return them to the graces of nature, forgiveness, and illumination, then no one is healed.

Do not bristle at the blessing, “Your sins are forgiven.” Is it easier to say, “Your heart is healed,” “You are renewed,” or “New life is conceived within you.” These are all blessings that say the same thing, but must root in the heart and grow into the tree of life within for the fruit of life to grow.

Go to the wilderness, to nature, and release what shackles you to the dry, narrow land so you can do the work necessary to clear the way for the flow of life.

Azut D’kedushah: Holy Boldness in the Desert

When we are called into the desert of Siccitas, we only have what we carry with and within us. If we are already dried out, we have to find the living waters quickly. But if we are called into the desert because we want to help those wandering through it, we must bring enough resources for ourselves and them. The prophetic call may come from either one or both of these sources.

What we need to survive this dry desert is holy boldness, sacred audacity (azut d’kedushah, עַזּוּת דִּקְדֻשָּׁה). This holy boldness is the sacred audacity through which we should enter the presence of God. We approach the divine with our head up and our backs straight. We may argue with the Divine like Abraham, or laugh like Sarah. We might even wrestle the Holy like Jacob did.

Remember, everything is in God, and God is in everything, so this holy boldness, sacred audacity (azut d’kedushah) is also how we approach life and living. It is this boldness that gets us through the desert and the dryness of life. It takes this sacred audacity to stand up to the powers of Babylon and Mitzrayim.

This boldness is not aggression, domination, nor certainty that we are right. It is the refusal to let obstacles decide whether we will pray, learn, repent, or begin again. Since life is prayer, this means we do not allow obstacles to stand in our way.

This boldness admits what we do not understand. It asks the seemingly foolish questions. It has the humility to request guidance. With it, we approach a teacher or spiritual friend honestly, refusing to pretend knowledge we do not possess. Unholy boldness or audacity does not do these things. What makes something holy is that it is set apart. If we do not take azut d’kedushah as holy, we will empty it as our dryness pulls the life from it.

Azut d’kedushah arises from Simcha (joy). If you need this boldness, start with gratitude, find this joy, this simcha, and live boldly from it.

Azut d’kedushah, holy boldness, allows us to hold onto truth. It is satyagraha in action. Holy boldness is soul force, truth force, encouraging our step through life as we live God in every moment. How do we hold onto truth? Joy. Simcha is the power of life arising in the community to drive the greening ever on. Be joyfully bold, joyfully audacious, pouring soul force into the world with joy.

Remember the bands of the prophets would sing and dance through the wilderness as they went about their way.

Davka: Precisely Here, Precisely Now

At the river Jordan, John baptized with water to heal the souls and wash the unclean spirits from people so they can find the steadfast breath/spirit again. He taught holy boldness and gave people the tools they needed to face the vagaries of life. Davka (דַּוְקָא)... Lav davka... Afilu... or to say that another way: precisely this case, not only this case, even in this case.

He baptized with water, precisely the water of the river Jordan, but this cleansing is not exclusive to his hands and that river, and even if there is no water and a person is alone, this cleansing is available to them.

Davka means so much more than this. The holy boldness we are called to live with is not just for the good times. Davka requires us to ask what faithfulness requires in this specific circumstance. The holy is encountered through distinctions and relationships, not merely through undifferentiated unity. It helps us see where and how to perform purposeful resistance.

It also reveals through reversal. The ignored person may davka become the teacher. The wilderness may davka become the meeting place. A limit may davka disclose a vocation. Grief may davka reveal how deeply the world has been loved. This is why we stand with the anawim, the vulnerable. When we see the stones the builders of empire reject, we learn more about the glories of life they are pressing out of it.

This is the vision of holy boldness, to see precisely what it is in this moment that can teach us. This is the opposite of saying, everything happens for a reason. It is not that everything happens for a reason, but that in this precise moment we have a call to holy boldness. Precisely: What am I resisting, whom does my resistance serve, and what kind of world does it create?

When we say that we focus on the needs of the anawim, we are resisting the call of empire to cast someone out for an arbitrary reason. This resistance serves the marginalized and the community itself by healing the artificial division being sown into it. This creates a world of equitable justice and unity that resists the division that weakens us all.

This lens helps us to see clearly when times are good and when they are hard. It focuses us on the work before us so we are not distracted by the situation we find ourselves in.

This also helps keep us from rejecting life for spiritual purposes. On path one, when we experience awe, we ask precisely what is eliciting this awe so we can dig deeper into the wonder before us. In path two, we ask precisely what pain, suffering, or grief we are sitting with and what are its causes. As we step onto path three, we ask precisely what we are creating and why so we can make it as good as we can. In path four, we ask precisely what the injustice is, how to interfere with it, and how we can do this with joy and celebration.

The cosmic prevents the particular from becoming tribal or enclosed. The particular prevents the cosmic from becoming abstract or evasive. On these two wings we fly. As a mystic, we do not lose ourselves in the depths of our meditation and contemplation. The artist does not lose themselves or contact with the world as they continue their work. For the prophet, this way of thinking keeps us from smoothing over particular issues to focus on the bigger problems before us, but it also keeps us from only seeing the particular issues at the cost of ignoring the systems that make those problems.

Boldness without precision is reckless. Actions without boldness lack strength. The mystic, the artist, and the prophet must find the balance between these or they become self-serving and the needs of life are ignored.

At the river Jordan, John met the people in the circumstances of their lives as they were, and offered them a way they could find life there and to rescue it from the pain pressed into them. The water was symbol, but also a place of awe, release, creation, and transformation. Precisely in these waters, the old life was washed away and the new life rose in its place.

He Must Increase, I Must Decrease

Listen to the voice of John as he teaches us the deepest heart of the prophetic call, “He must increase, but I must decrease (John 3:30).”

As the prophet grows into the life of the Wild Christ to interfere with the injustices of the world, they have to learn how to keep from centering themselves in the work and mission. It is not the prophet, but the Life and Light of God that speaks to the heart, and this Cosmic Christ can speak to the heart even in the absence of the prophet. This does not give us a license to do nothing in the face of injustice. It is a reminder that we must center the Living Word. The Living Word does not depend on the prophet, but the prophet depends on the Living Word.

The Living Word is the Word spoken, enacted, and lived in the world. It is the creative power flowing through all things. No prophet is a gateway or a mediator of this power. It is everywhere in everything, if only we listen to it.

In the life of the prophet, the prophet must decrease so the Living Word may increase. Their focus must always be on the Light, Life, and Wisdom of God as it flows into the world, and not themselves. This is holy boldness at its fullest.

We all live God in every moment of every day. When the prophetic call comes to us, we live the Living Word in the face of the injustice, interfering with it so people may be liberated. Liberation, return, and restoration are the goals of the prophets. It is never self-enrichment, self-aggrandizement, and self-centered. Those are the poisons of Babylon entering the community like sheep, but inside they are ravenous wolves.

A true prophet decreases so the Living Word may grow in the life of the community. John did not require people to return to him for remission of their sins. He taught them the way of return and sent them on their way. When the Wild Christ came to him to be baptized, he baptized him, and sent many of his disciples to follow him. This is the way of the prophet. The prophet serves God, and God is life liberated from the chains of oppression.

You Are a Prophet

We are born in this world to carry the Light of Life. Babylon tries to dim it. Mitzrayim seeks to dry it out. Like John, we are called to work in this world in the spirit of Elijah, to prepare the way for Life to flow without obstruction or diversion.

Shalom to the hearts of the prophets. Peace in wholeness to all who live in this world. Do not believe that peace is not real in times of conflict or that wholeness is absent in division. Celebrate with joy the peace and wholeness you have and seek to increase it as more are liberated from the chains that weigh them down.

Not everyone will follow our way, with the same words and deeds, but all who seek to live in liberation, peace, and wholeness join us in the way.

The Way is narrow, not because God constricts it, but because Babylon and Mitzrayim block the path so they can divide the living and control their lives. For the same reason, Truth and Life are also hard to find so people will give in to the greed, fear, and lust for power that seek to devour the world.

Awake, all you prophets. Awake to the call to interfere with injustice and liberate yourself and your fellows from the shackles that seek only to control and dominate. The Word is a discourse and lives in the discussion. Interfere with injustice and set life free.

Go forth with holy boldness and precision, so you will overcome the obstacles and diversions set in the path before you. Heal divisions, but do not lose yourself to the wholeness and fullness of life. Your distinct voice is needed, or the chorus of life is diminished. Seek not your own way, but the way of life so all may be free to live in the joy available to all.

You are a prophet. The call of the Holy Spirit is upon you. May your breath ever be steadfast and not divided. May your heart be so full it overflows into the world so all may grow green with life more abundantly.

Be an eye that sees, arms that hold and heal, hands that build up, and a life that pours justice and joy into the world. This is the way of the prophets. Join the dance. Sing the songs of life, and secure justice for all.

Leave a comment

The oak knows. The well knows. The land under your feet has always been the first teacher. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer gives that knowing a companion for the journey.

In the Beginning, All Was One

In the beginning, all was one. As the one flared forth into time and space, all remained one, interconnected in more ways than any mind can conceive. A star burning in the endless night does not believe it is alone. It dances with all the cosmos around it.

This oneness is not sameness. Difference is not a burden to the One Life and it is not a corruption of it. It is the oneness of unity, not ruled by the vile power of conformity which arises from greed, fear, or lust for power. Oneness is a dance, and communion for parts arising from the whole and from which the whole emerges. It is the flow from concentration to dissolution, and back again.

On the night before his arrest, the Living Christ prayed in his body the yearning of the Divine toward the cosmos. As he poured out his life, with his feet on the earth and his heart in the holy of holies in heaven, he prayed that all eyes and hearts will be opened so “that they may all be one; even as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that you sent me (John 17:21).” This unity is shown in love, since God is love. The care we have for one another goes beyond the order of love Babylon presses upon us.

Babylon demands that we love ourselves, then our families, then friends, then fellow citizens. All these circles are used to define the stranger, so they can be excluded or so they can justify giving them less for each degree out. It shatters the unity of life and divides the house, so it is easier to topple it over until it falls.

Love loves all. What happens to one affects all. Every hungry belly, every thirsty soul, everyone left to wander when they could be given a home, lessens the whole. A full belly steals no bread. An illness cured does not spread. A home built is a blessing to all.

Behold the great mystery revealed to the world: “The glory which you have given me, I have given to them; that they may be one, even as we are one (John 17:22);” for the Glory of God is the name of God etched into every particle of the cosmos.

The Glory of God is the majesty and honor of God manifest in the world. It is the heart of the kin-dom. As majesty, it guides us ever toward the Light. As honor, it is the lamp of the heart to guide our lives. To receive the Glory is not to be aggrandized. This Glory is shared with us and all that lives. It is the sign of our unity, leading the dance of life.

And so we sing the Song of the One Life: “I in them, and you in me, that they may be perfected into one; that the world may know that you sent me, and loved them, even as you loved me (John 17:23).”

There is no separate self in the same way there are no separate rivers. Even though they flow in diverse places, the water in them returns to the same source to be collected then recirculated around the world. We could argue forever over whether the river is the course it follows or the water that flows. Both are ever changing, different day by day, but they arise from one water that circulates and flows through them all. The river is real, and so is the water. They are one though they are different, but one cannot exist without the other.

The Wild Christ is the flow of life and creation, the Anointer and the Anointed, each creating the other in an endless cycle of making. “He is before all things, and in him all things are held together (Colossians 1:17).”

All the Hands That Made You

Dance with the Wild Christ in the day and in the night. Under the mystery of the stars, in the light of the Moon, dance in the soothing cool till the morning sun. In the brightness of the day, under the heat of the sun, dance with the strength life gives you. In awe, in mourning, in inspiration, in protest, and in celebration, dance.

The Wild Christ is the dancer, and God is the dance. “For in him we live, and move, and have our being. As some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring (Acts 17:28).’”

What does it mean to be the offspring of the Dance? Life is living God. Movement is moving God. Being is being God. Yes, no individual is God, but together with all that is above and below, within and around, before and behind, God lives, moves, and has being through us all.

Think about the farmer. No farmer can sow if no one has ever reaped. There must be seed before there can be a harvest. The farmer collects the seeds, protects them through the winter, sows them in their season, and gathers some of what has ripened, allowing the rest to go to seed before they are collected. Then the cycle begins again.

The farmer is the sower, the gardener, the harvester, and the shelter of the crop. This is the way of all life. The farmer and the field are one. If the farmer does not understand the soil, the needs of the plants, the times and seasons from planting, watering, fertilizing, pruning, the yield is diminished. They must know what threatens and sustains the plant and the fruit. The farmer who is not the field blinds themselves from the glorious harvest that could have been theirs. They fall out of sync and do not maintain or sustain each other.

All of life is like this. The practice and the practitioner are one. The act and the actor are one. The person and the people are one. In all things, we are interconnected and entwined in a web of actions, interactions, and reactions that cannot be managed or controlled, because there are too many to track.

There is no separate self. How many hands grow, harvest, transport, and prepare our food? How many minds have thought and taught the ideas and beliefs we hold so dear? Every grain of sand has a lineage of lives, mountains, lands, rivers, oceans, and stars that all contributed something to what it is now and what it will become in the future.

If you feel alone or isolated, turn to see all the hands that made you, and make you even now. Not all those hands worked with love, justice, and joy, and may have left bruises and scars.

Honor love. Honor justice. Honor joy. Honor hope. These are the hands that heal and create, they sustain and maintain life. Anger, ignorance, hate, greed, fear, and violence are parasites that feed on life because they have no life of their own.

This is why there is not one path to the One Life, but there is one way. Love, justice, joy, and hope guide the way, but there are many ways to serve them. We are not conformed to them, but are transformed by them as we turn from what is not love, justice, joy, or hope. Some will use the same words, names, and practices as we do, but if they truly honor these, we are walking the path together. These connect us deeper than the words ever will.

Breath of Breath: All Is Breath

The secret of life cannot be held, only beheld: “Emptying upon emptying! —said the Assembler— Emptying upon emptying! Everything is emptying (Ecclesiastes 1:2 from Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Ecclesiastes: Annotated & Explained).”

Listen to the heart of the Assembler, “Emptying! Emptying upon emptying! The world is fleeting of form, empty of permanence, void of surety, without certainty. Like a breath breathed once and gone, all things rise and fall. Understand emptiness, and tranquility replaces anxiety. Understand emptiness, and compassion replaces jealousy. Understand emptiness, and you will cease to excuse suffering and begin to alleviate it (Ecclesiastes 1:2 from Rabbi Rami Shapiro, The Tao of Solomon: Unlocking the Perennial Wisdom of Ecclesiastes).”

There is so much meaning in so few words: Havel havalim. Havel havalim hakol. Hevel is the mist-like nature of life. It is real and beautiful, but fleeting, elusive, and beyond our control. The word means breath, vapor, mist, or smoke. Another way to say this same thing is: Breath of breath. All is breath.

When we breathe we draw in and release air from and to the world. We take in and we let go. That is the foundation of living. Though each breath is fleeting, another follows it. This is how life flows in the world.

How many breaths do you breathe? Is it a breath in and a breath out, or is the in and out one breath? When not thinking about it, breath flows in and out, filling and emptying our lungs without notice.

Hevel means breath, and so does Ruach, or spirit. A steady breath is a sign of a steadfast spirit. God creates us in Original Blessing, and establishes us with a steadfast spirit, or breath. This is our home.

When our spirit is disturbed our breath becomes divided. Fear catches the breath in the lungs. Dread quickens our breath. The spirits Jesus cast out of people were the ruach tum’ah, unclean spirits/breaths. This is the divided breath that keeps us from participating in the practice of the community. It is the spirit/breath that separates us from the community and within ourselves.

In repentance, returning to the path, God reestablishes the steadfast spirit/breath in us.

As we understand that all is like breath, and establish our hearts and minds in it, we grow in the steadfast breath and the Holy Spirit/Breath breathes through us.

The path of wisdom is easy to walk, and the tree of life grows in us in every step. Root yourself in the awe and knowledge of the Holy One who Is. Grow in the spirit of counsel and strength. Branch out in the spirit of wisdom and discernment. In all these things the Spirit of the One in whom we live, move, and have our being will create a pure heart in you day by day.^[1]

Everything changes. Nothing is permanent. Hallelujah!

Sown Like Light

“Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart (Psalms 97:11).” Right relationship is the ground of life into which the Light of the Holy One is sown. This Light is the Living Word, spoken from the heart, carried on the steadfast breath, empowered by the Holy Breath of the One in whom we live, move, and have our being. Simcha; joy, gladness, rejoicing, or delight, is sown in those whose hearts are sincere and aligned with what is right.

This joy, this simcha, is sown like the light! It rains from the heavens and sustains the hearts of those who live in right relationship with one another and with the world. Receive this joy as a leaf receives the light, so life may flourish in and among you.

Do not confuse joy and gladness. Gladness (chedvah) refreshes, sustains, or radiates from the Ground of Life. It is a feeling arising within us, bringing a smile to our face, but it is not the same as joy. Simcha is joy experienced, expressed, and celebrated together. It is joy rooted not in circumstances but in belonging, integrity, and the light that persists within us. Simcha transforms our community as it grows into the fullness of life. God’s gladness becomes the source of the people’s joy. Remember, God is not merely the One who gives joy, but the living movement of gladness unfolding through us and between us.

“I know that there is nothing better for those who [work in the Light] than to rejoice, and to do good as long as they live. Also that every one should eat and drink, and enjoy good in all their labor, is the gift of God (Ecclesiastes 3:12-13).” No one should stand in the way of simcha, and those who separate the people from seeing and savoring the goodness that arises in their labor stand between the worker and God. As we behold the good in the effort we pour forth into this world, simcha arises and gladness fills our hearts, overflowing into the community so all rejoice with gladness. Joy is life even when life isn’t joyful.

O, Blessed One, guide our hands so they may do good. You order our steps, and guide us to right relationship with ourselves, one another, and all the world. “You will show me the path of life. In your presence is fullness of joy. In your right hand there are pleasures forevermore (Psalms 16:11).” In your left hand are strength and justice for all. May your Light ever greet our eyes, and your Life fill our bodies, so we may ever speak the Living Word with courage and hope.

Nothing is permanent. All is like the breath. It flows in and out. No two breaths are the same. So it is with our spirit and yours. Your breath is our breath. May our breath always be your breath, holy and filled with joy. Together in the unity of being, we work for the restoration of all into the Light and Life that flows forward to that great and glorious day when all find the wholeness and fullness offered in this life.

When we confuse joy with gladness, we believe that sorrow can rob us of our joy. “Those who sow in tears will reap in joy (Psalms 126:5).” Tears testify to our joy, and plant the seeds of the joy to come. You cannot mourn what you did not love or what never gladdened your heart. Each tear is a testament to the joy we had and will have again. Sorrow and grief do not steal joy from us; they proclaim the power of that joy in our lives. We may not feel it while in their embrace, but we can in the arms of those who console us and celebrate with us what we have lost.

As we wander through the narrow and dry places, we sing, dance, and offer glad tidings. We don’t pretend bad things do not happen, and we do not ignore grief or pain, but we do not let those things define us. We walk in the way handed down from the prophet: “For you shall go out with joy, and be led out with peace. The mountains and the hills will break out before you into singing; and all the trees of the fields will clap their hands (Isaiah 55:12).”

When was the last time you listened to the song of the mountains, or the clapping of the trees? Peace is the wholeness of the community, and joy is our celebration. We sing and dance with simcha. She holds our hands when we repent and return to the path. She gives us a shoulder to cry on when we need it. Simcha is our constant companion, and the heart of our life. So, “Go your way. Eat the fat, drink the sweet, and send portions to him for whom nothing is prepared, for today is holy to our Lord. Don’t be grieved, for the joy of Yahweh is your strength (Nehemiah 8:10).” “Go your way—eat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has already accepted your works (Ecclesiastes 9:7).”

All Shall Be Well

Simcha lives in the heart that prays honestly, “All shall be well.” This is not a platitude or a hope for the future. It is the lesson we have learned from the hard work and struggles of all that came before us.

All shall be well does not mean that we do not take action. If the ground moves under our feet and the stars dance above our heads, how can we believe that we should refuse to act or freeze before the powers of the world.

Remember always that the One Life that holds you, flows through you and shares your days and nights. Remember hevel that frees you. Nothing remains the same forever, all things change. Good can be made better, Evil can be ground to dust. The mighty will fall from their thrones because they are brittle and snap under the weight of their misdeeds. Remember simcha that is yours. It holds your hands and guides you through all things.

Blessed are those who laugh and cry, mourn and dance, work and rest. Dream dreams, as the fire of the Spirit empowers you to restore life, light, and wisdom to all things.

Do not go alone, but together. Sing with the mountains and clap your hands with the trees. Life endures, so live. Live not in the past or the dreams of the future. Live now. This moment is the one that changes the future forever. Every moment is the one that transforms life to life in the endless stream of life.

Just as the divided breath weakens the mind and the body, the divided house cannot stand. United in love, celebrating in joy, do justice, and live God humbly, so you incarnate the truth that all shall be well.

1. Isaiah 11:2; Psalm 51:10; Acts 17:28↩︎

Leave a comment

You left the institution but not the longing. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer is for everyone who still feels the sacred moving through the world and wants a language worthy of that feeling.

The Vision of the Earth and the Tower

I saw the earth open, and rich color and life flowed forth. In the depths, I saw a tower standing tall near a rock-cut tomb out of which light flowed like the morning sun. Birdsong and the rustling of feathers intoned wonder.

The tower held my gaze like a sister cradles her newborn sibling. Her foundation stood on a rock sunk deep in the soil, firm and true. Her cornerstone, rough and ancient like the earth herself. Each stone is a word of wisdom, crowned with glory. Its presence called me into the heart of the world. My soul danced with delight as I drew closer to the tower.

As I approached, the form of the tower grew clearer. I saw a woman draped in light holding a red egg in her right hand that shone like a ruby.

The woman sang with joy, “Hayah. Hayah. Hayah. Hu chai! Hayah. Hayah.”

I sang with her, “To be, become, to be, He lives! To be. To be.” The song filled my heart, my mind, and my spirit. My breath stilled. Peace filled the earth. Joy danced around and through us.

“Ki tov,” she said with a smile.

“It is good,” I smiled back as her blessing, the first blessing, washed over me.

As I looked around me, the whole of the earth was alive and singing with joy, “Hayah. Hayah. Hayah. Hu chai! Hayah. Hayah.”

When I returned my attention to the lady at the heart of the earth, she raised her arms and said, “I am Mary Magdalene, the Migdal, the anointer. Listen. Do you not hear even the rocks singing the glory of the One who is, was, and ever shall be?”

The whole of the world sang the glory of the Living One, and we sang with them.

The River Beneath Everything

“Behold,” the Magdalene said as she pointed to the earth.

Beneath its surface, a green river flowed and branched like the veins of a leaf. Wherever the green river ran, abundant life sprang from the soil, but its waters were not contained within it. They streamed up and through the living things and splashed into the world like everything were a fountain of life watering the ground and spreading its greening power.

“This is the greening power of God flowing throughout all creation,” the Magdalene said. “This energy, this Viriditas, is the greenness that brings life, wisdom, and joy. The stone is HaMakom, the One in whom we live, move, and have our being. The soil is the creation itself and all that it contains.”

“Is viriditas God?” I asked.

“Yes and no,” she said. “When you think of God, do not imagine a being beyond you or as near to you as your breath. This is an idol in the mind with no hands to offer or receive, no ears to hear or voice to speak. God is not a thing, and neither are you.”

“Then what am I and what is God?”

“You are made in the image of God, so once you understand yourself, you will have a better understanding of God. You are not a thing made of stone, wood, or metal, shaped and unchanging throughout your life. You are a current, a flow of life whose strength and compassion changes the world around you as you flow through it. You are also changed by the world as your flow is diverted, thinned, and deepened by what is around you over time. You live this life as much as it lives you. You are the flow living in constant participation with the world around and within you. You are the sum of these relationships as you change throughout your life.”

“So God is change?”

“God is the eternal and endless flow that we all participate in. Your actions are prayers in this river. God lives in you as you live in God. God can be change just as God can be wisdom, understanding, loving kindness, strength, beauty, splendour, endurance, foundation, and presence. We experience God as the actions or states of being we live. God is the ongoing process of creation, connection, healing, love, and becoming. God is creating, connecting, healing, loving, and becoming. Our greatest worship of God is to participate in the living God in these ways.”

“So, viriditas is participating in these things?”

“Viriditas is the flow that feeds these actions. It is why the plant’s leaves are green, but that greenness does so much more than just give color to the eye. It feeds the plant from the light that shines on it. That is what viriditas is. It is greening.”

The Magdalene dipped her hand into the rich soil and said, “What a blessing the Holy One gave us from the beginning. A blessing open to all.”

“I understand,” I said as I touched the earth, “God is blessing. The earth is blessed and blessing. We are all blessed and blessing.”

“This is what it means to live God,” the Magdalene said, “but you forgot one thing. God is blessed in all prayers, which are the actions of life. God is being, not a being. Viriditas is the greening that flows in God through all things.”

The Three Lords of Babylon

The Magdalene covered her heart with her hand, and sorrow covered her face. When I asked her what was wrong, she pointed to the horizon.

Three stood there. One was proud and gilded with a flaking veneer of gold leaf. Jewelry stiffened the wrists, ankles, and neck as they rubbed the gold leaf from their body. Another stood tall in a polished and decorated suit of armor with a sword in their hand. A strange rattle resounded from within the armor. The third sneered as their hollow, hungry eyes measured the world. They carried a gift that leaked a poisonous miasma from it.

“These are the three enemies of life,” the Magdalene said. “They are not born from the rich soil of the world, and they are not fed by the wellsprings of life. They are born when the ever-changing nature of the world and life is rejected by those who believe they can freeze life and it will somehow still live.

“The first figure you saw is greed. It believes that everything should exist for its own use. It longs to be beautiful, wealthy, and young forever. Everything should serve its wants, desires, and cravings. It hoards, steals, and traps all that fall into its shadow.

“The second figure is fear. The rattling you heard was it quaking within its armor. It is terrified of change, building great walls to defend itself and waging war to feel like it has control over others and the world itself.

“The third figure is lust for power. It seeks to have, not to experience. It lusts for conquest, not for pleasure. What it grasps, it chokes till it withers, then it grabs more. Often, it lacks the patience to wait, and grasps constantly, taking everything it can grab to itself.

“These are the lords of Babylon, the power that corrupts and draws in all things to itself, severing it from life.”

The three figures struck the ground. Greed extracted from the land what it thought would feed it. Fear waged war on all that did not obey without question. Lust for power proclaimed the glory of Babylon and enticed more followers to their banner.

Everywhere they touched the earth dried out. They dammed the flow of viriditas and built walls around the dust of their empire.

“Behold Mitzrayim,” the Magdalene said. “This is the narrow place where life is pressed from the living to feed the machine of empire. It is forged from the ever-thirsting power of Siccitas, dryness. As greed, fear, and lust for power spread their illusory power in the world, they dry out the land so everyone is dependent on them, becoming unfamiliar with the life that could keep them green and growing.”

I said, “How awful these states are. This is terrible.”

“Do not think that siccitas is wielded by the state alone,” the Magdalene said. “If greed, fear, and lust for power take root in your soul, then this power is in you too. Drink from the Living Water, and return to the path or they will leave you as little more than dry bones.”

“How can these be born in a person?” I asked.

“Like all seeds, they require the right conditions to grow,” the Magdalene said. “Siccitas grows from fear. I am not talking about the fear that strikes quickly and is not held too deep in the heart. I am talking about the fear that becomes a dread that spreads through the rest of the soul and consumes it. This dread is born from a certainty in things that are not true. It refuses to consider evidence that it might be wrong. It replaces the search for wisdom with a certainty that plugs the ears and covers the eyes. In order to protect itself from learning it is wrong, it exercises dominion in a vain attempt to keep from losing what it can never hold onto. Finally, it refuses the love of the heart that fights against the fear, certainty, and dominion they need to keep from being moved by the powers of life.”

The Checkerboard Greening

The dry land spread across the face of the earth. Its green withered to ashes. Its rich, dark soils crumbled to dust. Rivers lost their waters, and the birdsong left the sky. Even the stars were cloaked from the night sky so wonder and awe could not rise in the dry land.

Then a dot of green grew amidst the sands. Under the dry earth, the river of viriditas never stopped flowing. Greed, fear, and lust for power sealed the land so its greening power could not rise to the surface.

“Nothing is permanent,” the Magdalene said. “The hard ground eventually cracks and seeds can find the water they need to renew the land. In some places, those trapped in the dry land dug their own wells to bring the water back.”

Paths developed between the green patches, growing into roads.

“No one is lost. No one is abandoned,” the Magdalene said. “Even in the driest land, the way wends through it. At any time, people can turn and walk back to the way, and find the life within them desiring to be born. As more return to the way of life, the greener the world becomes and the more the dryness is pushed back.”

I watched regions green, dry, and then green again.

“Why does the dryness return?” I asked. “Did the greening fail?”

“The greening never fails,” the Magdalene said, “but it does not force itself on others. Just as any can turn their back on the flow of life, anyone can return. Teshuvah, the return, is available to all who seek to return to the flow of life.”

“There is a lightness about you,” I said. “Is it the viriditas that carries you through life?”

“I am greened and connected to life,” the Magdalene said. “When a soul enters into the flow of life they are like a feather floating on the breath of God. The more we cooperate in the life of God, the more we are guided by the Spirit. Become receptive and responsive to the flow of life. Let your feather float on the breath of God as you walk through this world so you will not stray from the flow of life.”

The Green Heart That Grows

The Magdalene touched her forehead and revealed a wreath of evergreen branches growing and living.

“Look closely,” she said. “This is the green power of viriditas at work in me. This is verdure, the green heart/mind that grows in us as we live in the flow of life. Everything we have depends on others. The food we eat, the language we speak, the bodies we inhabit, the wisdom we learn, the love we receive. How could awakening belong to us alone?”

“I suppose it couldn’t,” I said.

“In this life, we know awe, we make space and surrender to what we cannot control, we create, and we stand with those barred from the glories of living by the powers who seek to control and to possess. As the green power and wisdom fills us, it fills us like how water gives rise to the sap. Since we know pain, we can understand the pain of others. Since we understand the pain of others, our own suffering gains meaning. It connects us. This is true of our awe, creativity, and prophetic life in the world.”

I nodded and pondered her words.

“This is why we cultivate verdure. It is the greenness within us, and it calls us to help others grow green in themselves. When we truly see ourselves, we find others there. And when we truly see others, we find ourselves there. Compassion is what remains when that understanding becomes complete.

“We do not grow verdurous for ourselves alone, or the land we are in will dry up again and we build a Babylon for ourselves. That is far from the way.

“We green ourselves so we can share our living with others until they open up to the greening available to them in all things. Our verdure is the reservoir that sustains us through the dry times and helps others to find the life they have been denied.”

She Speaks to All Who Will Hear

Mary Magdalene took me deep into an ancient oak forest. We sat on logs of trees that had fallen and now replenish the soil below them. Here she proclaimed the way of living in this greenness:

Dearest one, this is the wisdom of the Greening Earth, the Living Word of the Christ who speaks from the stones, the trees, and the rivers. This is the way of the Wild Christ who dances in the clouds above, and the depths of the seas far below, and in the green and dried lands.

In the visions, you saw four true things:

The first is the truth of Viriditas. Everything was created in original blessing, and it overflows with the divine greening power. The soul is a garden that grows green as we flow in its energy and wisdom.

The second is the truth of Siccitas. Dryness can enter the heart through the clinging to or aversion from the ever-changing nature of the world. All pleasure fades, and suffering is a real part of life. When the greening is blocked, dryness, brittleness, and the systems of Babylon clog the streams. Fear, false certainty, domination, and the refusal of the love that animates the heart create the wasteland in the soul and the world.

The third is the truth that the wasteland can be healed. Siccitas is not the final word. Viriditas lies sleeping beneath the dry ground, waiting. The return of the waters is always possible. This greening begins wherever one soul opens.

The fourth is the truth of Teshuvah. The path of return exists. Turning back toward the green is always available. There is no guilt in this turning, but the return of those who have gone astray is celebrated in heaven and on earth.

To ensure we walk in this wisdom we learn to walk in the Ten Greening Ways. These are the dances and steps we take. We walk them together and with one another. We walk these ways not by force. They teach us to live as a feather carried on the breath of God.

The first is the way of Caritas. Caritas is love as the animating fire of all the virtues. Here we cultivate the Sacred Heart within us that drives the whole greening life outward into the world.

The second is the way of Simcha. Simcha is joy as practice and ground. It is more than a feeling, it is a way of living in this world. It is not earned at the end of the journey but received at the beginning and cultivated throughout. It is the atmosphere born from the greening that makes the whole Way possible.

The third is the way of Humilitas. Humilitas is groundedness in the soil of reality. It teaches us to be rooted in original blessing rather than inflated by false certainty. This is the soil in which viriditas takes root.

The fourth is the way of Emunah. Emunah is faith as confidence in the path. As we see freedom, liberation, and the transformation in our lives, our faith grows and it steadies us on the way.

The fifth is the way of Ahmahl. Ahmahl is effort as living faith enacted. It is when we find awe, let go, let be, make space, create, celebrate, and interfere with injustice. The work of our thoughts, words, and deeds is Ahmahl. These are the works of the heart that prove and strengthen faith. Here we learn to tend the garden through right diligence.

The sixth is the way of speaking, “Hineini,” honestly. Hineini means I am here. It is a statement of full presence, “I am completely here.” It signals readiness, availability, attentiveness, and commitment. It is mindfulness as full-body present attention. Here I am, in this moment, in this body, available to what is actually here.

The seventh is the way of Kavanah. Kavanah is the intention behind our actions, concentration as breakthrough. It penetrates into the nature of what is there so the deep waters can be seen and drawn from.

The eighth is the way of Chokmah. Chokmah is the wisdom we gain from walking the path and living life. She is the insight that frees the soul from fear, despair, and the lies of Babylon.

The ninth is the way of Discretio. Discretio is discernment as the mother of all virtues. This is the practical wisdom of knowing what each moment of the spiral dance requires; reading the paths of awe, silence, creativity, and transformation rightly. The process is simple: recognize if something is truly valuable; check if it is genuine, not a counterfeit; verify it bears the right image or intention; and ensure it has the proper weight or substance.

The tenth is the way of Tikkun. Tikkun is the repair of the world. It is the liberation of the trapped lights, the greening of creation, and shalom, the peace that brings wholeness.

The Fruit of Viriditas

When she was done speaking, she placed her hands over her heart and said a quiet prayer.

“Blessed and blessing Font of All Life, whose image is the pattern of creation, open the hearts, minds, and spirits of your children so they might live in the peace that passes all understanding through the love you share with us all.”

As she lifted her hands, the Sacred Heart of Jesus shone from her chest.

“This is the heart of Christ within every believer. Through it, mercy and love flow.”

She looked from the ground to the heavens, and I knew from the awe in her eyes that in every moment she beheld God.

“A pure heart is a righteous heart that lives in right relationship with itself and the world. All that it did not need has been let go, and it burns with the love that animates all.”

The Magdalene touched the sacred heart and said, “This is the fruit of the viriditas, the fruit of the tree the Christ hung on. It grows in all who live in love. Cultivate the tree of life within you so this fruit may grow ripe in you.”

Light radiated from her and the sacred heart.

“May the Glory of God ever guide your steps. May the Living Word enlighten your mind and ever be on your tongue. May the Presence of God ever hold you in her loving arms. Amen.”

Leave a comment

Viriditas. The greening power. Hildegard knew it. The forest knows it. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer is for everyone who has ever felt the divine moving through roots and rain and refused to call that feeling anything less than holy.

What the Calendar Was Always Trying to Tell Us

Holy days and liturgical seasons used to be dates on a calendar to me. I resonated with some of them, and I understood the historical reason for others, but I didn’t understand what they were for. I didn’t understand formation.

Formation is the lifelong process of becoming more fully human, awake, compassionate, and grounded in purpose through learning, reflection, community, and lived experience. Religious formation shapes the soul and spirit toward wisdom, justice, love, and sacred relationship. My eyes were opened when I learned how the Nordic Folk School tradition understands it. To the Nordic Folk School tradition, formation is not merely about gaining information or credentials, but about cultivating the whole person through dialogue, creativity, shared life, and meaningful participation in the world. Both understandings see formation as transformational rather than transactional. It is about who we are becoming, not simply what we know.

We use a liturgical calendar for formation. We walk with it through the same cycles every year to root us deeper into the tradition, spirituality, and life we live.

A holy day is not merely a commemoration of a person or event. It is an invitation to enter more deeply into their mysteries so we can cultivate our hearts in the grace they have to offer us. I suppose you could say I see holy days and liturgical seasons as sacramental, and it changed my life. They offer us grace if only we would participate and partake in them.

The Work of the People: One Path Was Missing

The word liturgy means, “the work of the people.” It is the public work we do together in community for the good of ourselves and the world. For us, the work is formation into the life of God and the Kin-dom.

When we contemplated our liturgical year, we saw a correlation with the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, but one of the paths was missing.

Advent is the season of Via Positiva. Here we receive the original blessing, savoring the coming light, welcoming the God who overflows into creation. It is a time for awe and wonder.

Lent and the Paschal Season is the time of the Via Negativa. Here we empty ourselves, take up the cross, and descend into death and silence. Here we learn that the dark is not absence but fullness of a different kind.

In the Counting of the Omer from Easter to Pentecost, we practice the season of the Via Creativa. We walk from the creative emergence from resurrection, counting our way into the Spirit’s fire. Here the soul learns to trust its own images and gifts.

Something was missing. There was no season of the Via Transformativa, so we added it to our calendar from the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi. We named this season the season of Viriditas. In this time we go out; we participate in the life of the world; and we actively tend the garden of our souls and the world.

What We Carry into the Garden

As we step into the season of Viriditas, the season of the Via Transformativa, we bring with us the awe and wonder we found in Advent, the spaciousness we found in the Paschal season, and the rebirth and the things we birthed as we counted the Omer out into the world to tend to the great garden of life.

In this season, we cleanse our eyes so we see the world clearly. We interfere with injustice and celebrate life with joy and within community. This is the time of year when we remind ourselves how we relate to our lives and to the world around us. We live the truth of being a co-creator with God we learned in the Via Creativa and bring that out into the world for our own return and for its restoration from glory to glory.

Satyagraha: The Courage to Hold Truth

The Living Word in the Via Transformativa is Satyagraha. This is more than nonviolent protest. It is the discipline of holding onto truth so deeply that you refuse to become what you oppose.

What is the truth we hold onto? Everything is created in Original Blessing, and while pain is real, it is not the sum of existence. Every life is sacred and we cannot throw anyone away because all life is valuable. We co-create this world through our creativity, interfering with injustice through joy and celebration.

The word was coined by Mahatma Gandhi from the Sanskrit words satya meaning “truth” and agraha meaning “holding firmly to.” Gandhi sometimes called it “truth-force” or “soul-force.” But I think of it as the courage to confront injustice without surrendering our humanity in the process.

It shaped movements like the Salt March, labor strikes, boycotts, fasting, and civil disobedience. But at its core, Satyagraha was never just political strategy. It was spiritual practice.

Gandhi believed that violence damages everyone involved, including the soul of the person using it. So the goal was not to destroy an enemy, but to awaken conscience, heal division, and expose injustice through disciplined love and sacrifice.

To practice Satyagraha is to refuse hatred even while resisting harm. It means telling the truth clearly, refusing cooperation with injustice, accepting suffering without retaliation, and remaining open to the possibility that even your opponent can change. It demands courage because it is easier to strike back than to remain grounded in compassion.

In everyday life, Satyagraha can look like:

• speaking honestly when silence would be safer

• refusing to dehumanize people you disagree with

• resisting systems of exploitation without cruelty

• setting boundaries without hatred

• choosing integrity over domination

• building alternatives instead of only condemning what is broken

Satyagraha is active, not passive. It is resistance rooted in love rather than revenge.

This is the heart of the Via Transformativa.

Viriditas: Staying Green in a World That Seeks to Dry Us Out

We keep ourselves strong and growing through the cultivation of Viriditas in our hearts so we can develop the Verdure we need to stay alive and greening in a world that all too often seeks to dry us out.

Hildegard of Bingen gave us the word Viriditas to describe the greening power of life itself. It is the vitality that pushes a seed through the soil, the force that turns bare branches green in spring, and the sacred energy that helps us grow into who we are meant to become. It is also the Green Wisdom that teaches us how to sustain and maintain life.

When we lose touch with viriditas, life feels dry, brittle, and exhausted. We go through the motions, but something in us is no longer flourishing. This can happen when we overextend ourselves, or when we struggle under the blistering heat of those who seek to control us, plunder our wealth, or coerce us into division or violence. All these things dry the land and require energy to stand still, much less push forward.

Viriditas reminds us that growth is not something we manufacture through sheer effort. It is something we participate in. Just as a garden grows when it receives sunlight, water, and care, our souls grow when we make space for wonder, healing, creativity, and love. We cultivate this in our hearts as Verdure.

Verdure is mature vital greenness. New shoots are verdant, but they are young and tender. Verdurous growth is strong, green, and healthy. As we connect in Viriditas, we develop this verdurous mind that allows us to stay vital even when the world and events around us seek to dry us out.

At its heart, Viriditas is the Divine’s life flowing through creation. It is the greening power that renews the world and invites us to become fully alive.

Two Hands for the Garden’s Work

As we grow in Viriditas and Satyagraha, the injustices in ourselves, and in our culture and world become clearer. God is love, and living in love is living in God. We have two tools that help us continue to move forward in a healthy and sustainable way: teshuvah and tikkun.

Teshuvah is the practice of returning. It really is that simple. It is easy for us to get distracted, to wander, or to stray from the path. More often than not, we do not do this for ill intentions. We are busy. We are able to be fascinated by things and ideas that look good, but that draw us away from the way of life. All we have to do is turn around and return to the path.

Tikkun olam, the restoration of the world, is both a mystical and practical work. As we walk the way of life, we restore the world through a myriad of actions we take in our spiritual practice. There is too much to say about tikkun for this brief introduction, but we will be talking about it more very soon.

The Heart of the Via Transformativa: A Path to Unity

We find the heart of the Via Transformativa in:

2 Peter 1:5-9
5. Yes, and for this very cause adding on your part all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence; and in moral excellence, knowledge;
6. and in knowledge, self-control; and in self-control perseverance; and in perseverance godliness;
7. and in godliness brotherly affection; and in brotherly affection, love.
8. For if these things are yours and abound, they make you to be not idle or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.
9. For he who lacks these things is blind, seeing only what is near, having forgotten the cleansing from his old sins.

This gives us the ladder of living qualities that grow in us as we live and practice our faith. While it is presented as a ladder, it is more of a web of traits and living qualities already present in the soul formed by the first three paths. Here in the Via Transformativa, these qualities begin to flower in the garden preparing to bear fruit.

Faith (Pistis/Emunah) is not believing despite evidence. It is the conviction that the greening is real, confidence in the path, the ground of Emunah from which all action springs. We experience this as the confidence we have in the practices, community, and work we do. Just as we trust our friends and family, we learn to trust the flow of the One Life and the effectiveness of the practice as we experience it. It has a skepticism at its root. We may want to believe, but we are honest about the results we see. If a practice is supposed to grow compassion in us but isn’t, we figure out what is causing it not to work. We might let go of the practice altogether if it is not repairable.

Moral Excellence (Arete) is not a path of guilt and shame; it is a path of discernment. It is establishing the virtuous course of thought, feeling, and action to develop the character of the gardener who tends with care. Jesus taught us that it is not what we take in that defiles us, but what we put out. Moral excellence is learned through teshuvah. We step out, and if we have wandered or strayed from the path, we return to the path and try something else. We are ever improving and will never be forever perfect.

Knowledge (Gnosis/Chokmah) is intelligence and understanding. It is not about being smart or memorization. It teaches us to see clearly what the garden needs and what is choking it. It is the wisdom of Chokmah at work in the world. This is the experience we develop through practice and action and learning from the fruits of our actions.

Self-Control (Egkrateia) is mastery of desire and passion, not suppression of them but right ordering. We need to have a practice of taking a breath between seeing, hearing, or reading something, to consider what it actually means and what action we should take in response to it. All too often we act like people who have built up a lot of static electricity in our bodies that we discharge wildly as we touch the world. When we are reactive, we are more likely to do things we would not ordinarily do and become someone other than who we want to be. We are what we do, not what we say or believe, so if we do not guard our actions, we can change who we are without realizing it. We should not sour our fruit for the simple pleasure of unregulated emotions.

Patience (Hupomone) is so much more than many of us were taught. It is steadfastness, constancy, and endurance. It is the long faithfulness of the gardener who plants what they will not live to harvest. Patience is both a foundation and fruit of most of the virtues we are talking about. Patience reminds us to look at the map so we don’t wander off course. It isn’t just waiting. Patience is the taproot of integrity because it bears in mind both who we are and who we yearn to become, and brings those considerations into the actions we take.

Godliness (Eusebeia) is too often confused with moral excellence. It is reverence and piety, both words that have lost meaning in the modern age. Reverence is the deep respect we have for things, people, and places. Piety is how we demonstrate that respect through our words and actions. The Greek word Eusebeia means good reverence. It is not simply believing in God or performing religious duties. It is living with reverence toward the sacredness woven through life. It is how we show our respect, gratitude, and right relationship with the Divine, ourselves, other people, and creation. It is spirituality embodied in the way we live. Godliness tends the garden as sacred work.

Brotherly Affection (Philadelphia) is the love of the community. It isn’t that we love the community no matter what it does, but that we love it and work to make it become the best it can be. We are a coalition of gardeners; no one tends the garden alone. This is the root of our mutual care and support for one another. Our love for the community is so much more than our love for the circle we draw around those closest to us. It is the love that connects us with all the cosmos as we live God.

Love (Agape) is the core of everything we are and do. It is the animating fire fed by the virtues we practice while it supports all their operations. It is the caritas, the heartfelt charity, that is the energy that makes every step of the path possible and meaningful. It is the Sacred Heart burning at the center of all transformative work. It is the basis of the three commandments of Jesus and the life of the community.

When practiced together, these virtues nurture the greening viriditas at work in us and the satyagraha we give to the world. They are the foundations of our joy and the soul of our community.

Into the Garden Together

This season of Viriditas opens us up to the life of God and roots us into the life of the world. As we learn to tap into the greening life of God, we develop the peace that passes all understanding and the life more abundant.

Many forces in this world seek to dry us out and silence our voices. Paul calls them the powers and principalities of the air, the rulers in high places. Mary’s beautiful Magnificat teaches us the path of God: to take care of one another and cast down the mighty from their thrones. This season reminds us every year how to root into God, Christ, and life so we reject this dryness and green the glorious greening to every corner of the world.

As we walk the Way through this season, we strengthen ourselves for all the trials and tribulations of life. Join us on the Way. He is the vine and we are the branches. Why do the branches keep insisting on doing the work alone when they have so much to gain from the interconnection at the basis of who and what we are?

Don’t worry about making every step perfect. We all trip and wander, but we can always return. If we go out together, we can make sure no one gets lost, and the march continues ever forward.

Leave a comment

Twenty years of Buddhist silence, Pagan earth-wisdom, Christian mysticism, and the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality distilled into a primer for the living journey. Creation’s Paths: A Creation Spirituality Primer, foreword by Matthew Fox.

.