…had I presence of mind amidst both devotion and polite or impolitic intrusion.
To Perdita Finn and Clark Strand, then, arms full of puppies, me standing on your porch: “Deep bow to each of you, both of you, for your intuitions and ways of living into bewilderment in the world today. I am thankful for all of your work(s)--books, community tending/holding/practice, etc.--and glad you are both in the world right now. I, too, live in a mystically-layered combination of worlds, often feeling a bit alone (or crazy) in the academic/ecclesial communities in which I serve, surrounded by those who do not live in an open-hearted way to all of that. Your co-creating world(s) in which more of the unseen becomes seen, or more of the holy-darkness can beckon, has made a real difference in my own life. I am so very grateful. While I don’t pop into as much Way of the Rose circling as I used to, my ability to stay with my own mystical layering is nourished by all you do. Oh, and Magic of Mothers should arrive this week. I didn’t know I would be standing on your doorstep yesterday, but I was moved to order it from Quebec City five days ago. May you continue to be blessed, to be a blessing, as life unfolds in these certain/uncertain times.”
I didn’t say any of that, of course, a bit tongue-tied and embarrassed to have intruded while seeking/missing the shrine on the way down their lane. Yesterday, we were driving southward on the NYState Thruway, en route from some vacation days in Quebec toward our friends’ daughter’s wedding here in New Jersey. Brian had been tracking his ancestral dead–Quebecois, he learned amidst Covid explorations in Ancestry.com–which took us to Baie-St.-Paul, Quebec City, and then some small towns south of Montreal. Crossing the border back into the States, we meandered amidst various forts he wanted to visit heading southward along Richelieu River, then Lake George. The Saratoga Battlefield driving tour felt congruent with fort-exploration, then a swing-by Mother Ann Lee’s Shaker Village near Albany. Mostly, we were two historically-spiritually curious travelers getting ourselves to the wedding-choice hotel amidst a rainy spring day. Brian was trying to remember some town where other ancestors had lived–Saugerties, NY–which sent me (in the passenger-navigation seat) to Google-maps. “We’re only twenty minutes away from Woodstock?!” I asked, surprised. Quick new search for Our Lady of Woodstock and we were off to an unexpected shrine visit!
I first encountered the rosary with a sense of invitation and possibility in the spring-summer of 2020, I’ll say. Covid-shut-down was in full effect and I had more time on my hands than I was accustomed to. I remember feeling ungrounded and unmoored. I think I encountered the book The Way of the Rose first, then the Facebook group, but I honestly don’t remember. Brian had a couple rosaries made of olivewood from Jerusalem, so I began to pray with the beads. It was grounding but I didn’t like those rosaries, for some reason. I began to explore the Way of the Rose artist page, curious whether different beads might be more palatable to my own embodied soul. I learned of a rose-petal/community member in Hawaii–Geralyn Camarillo–autumn of 2020, drawn to one of her creations organized around the chakras. I got myself one for Christmas. It was the first rosary that felt inviting, not suffocating or draining. It was free of ecclesial images-associations and made specifically for me. I was drawn to the practice daily, then weekly, finding the 54-Day Novena practice-community a real source of connection. The pre-Christian ‘hail maiden, mother, crone’ prayers soaked my thirsty-feminine soul. The egalitarian energies of the community, of the practice, fed me. I experimented with the ‘mysteries’ as inherited, then as my soul needed (moving the sorrowful mysteries to ones less focused on crucifixion, more on wilderness, which was my journey). I eventually returned to the traditional forms of mysteries, appreciating the symmetry so very much. The pre-Christian hail maiden-mother-crone took root and stayed.
Loving the feel of beads in my hand, it wasn’t long before I began to explore making rosaries myself. I learned new ways to make knots, and enjoyed crafting different gemstone creations for different people in my life. Rosewood for my father, for instance. For the years since, I’ve experimented with making traditional rosaries, then rosary-bracelets that have the decade plus five beads of introduction into the prayers. I’ve led workshops on “praying with beads,” a necessary translation for Protestant ears shaped away from “popery” by schismatic Protestant denominations. I’ve even invited folks into making their own rosaries during a daylong workshop event.
My own daily rosary practice has waxed and waned, but I’ve stayed with the making of rosaries–and now malas as well–for friends and soon-to-be friends. I made a couple rosaries and a mala this past summer, preparing for a pilgrimage to the Sacred Mountain in the fall. I discovered each one had a particular recipient in the circle I’d not met before making them. The rosary was a grounding practice for that pilgrimage–the Joyful Mysteries on the first day, the Sorrowful Mysteries on the second (with the death-lodge practice, interesting convergences), the Glorious Mysteries on the third day, awaiting new life and vision. Today, I mostly carry my beads with me, attuning to my breath with them as various meetings and tasks swirl around my workaday worlds.
Most recently, I crafted prayer-beads for a longtime spirit-friend whose ancestral lineage is eastern-european Jewish. Given the woundedness inflicted by Christians on his own lineages, it never felt quite ‘right’ to make him a traditional rosary. Yet it would often arise in me to create prayer beads for him all the same–I’ve known him for twenty years, after all. Finally, this past Easter, numerology and images began to bubble up into my awareness. I seemingly-suddenly knew how to make him some prayer beads that felt attuned to the divine feminine AND to his own lineage of practice(s).
Each ‘decade’ has 12 beads for the twelve tribes of Israel. Four large beads (so only four dozens, not five decades) for the four Matriarchs (Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, Rachel). A tail of 7 beads (7 having multiple sacred associations), with a transitional Venus of Willendorf bead then makes 13 large beads total, also a number of multiple sacred associations within Jewish wisdom. Today, it feels like the Venus bead could be Hagar somehow. I didn’t propose to know how the prayers might go for him–clearly the Lord’s Prayer, Hail Mary, and Glory Be wouldn’t quite fit–but invited him to feel his way into it. Or not, as he felt led. I do know that when I held it in my hand, took it up to Lake Superior with me for our post-Easter recovery-days, driving with it wrapped around my hand, it felt right and good to send to him.
So it was good to visit the shrine to Our Lady of Woodstock yesterday, in the rain, staying for the moments we had on our journey here. I had a strange dance with having my picture taken, of course. It felt odd to be taller than she was, so I fidgeted around about that inside. Silly. I loved the diversity of prayer flags surrounding the space. I stood smiling at the variety of rosaries around her neck and the various gifts/offerings left at her feet. I left my own offering, a few words, and enjoyed the silence and sounds all around us.
A joyous wedding comes later, then a longish drive back to Ohio.
It’s time to head home...even as Home seems to find us all along the way.
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