I didn't grow up in a church community, though I had a brief love affair with the ritual I found in an Episcopal church in Oregon in my twenties. My legitimate quest to create a spiritual practice was birthed in middle age by borrowing from the Buddhist practice of mindfulness, and the strong connection I felt for the worship of the Earth as taught us by our first nations. In Native American cultures The Great Spirit is a deity intertwined with the fabric of the Universe and the web of the life on Earth. It wasn't until recent years I discovered my Wiccan roots and the pre-Christian possibility that my ancestors were Earth worshippers. When I started this journey I worried because I didn’t know how to pray. Turns out we all know how to pray through our love of and gratitude for the gifts of life. This vault is for those who, like me, hunger for a spiritual practice and are learning to braid their own.

Sunday, August 9, 2015

A Pachamama state of mind

"The most important thing is state of mind," said the Shaman to open our week long study. "Concepts are second to right state of mind. People are capable of thinking up lots of exciting concepts. But nothing you accomplish should be at the expense of the people who go after you or the land, air or water they need to survive."

State of mind includes the collaboration of mind, heart, body and spirit, input from the ancients, spiked with the perspective of our great-grandchildren. Sometimes it's what we do that is most important, sometimes it's what we don't do that has the most effect. 

Saturday, August 1, 2015

Opening to mystery and possibility


Wade Davis speaks about the magic in diversity of thought and practice in this Ted Talk video. What he says speaks to my heart, like a kindred spirit, willing to step outside of a Western practice to explore possibilities more connected to the sacredness of the Earth than its conquest.