I know this now: It was a dangerous choice to go there in the first place. I was in danger of losing so much, constricting myself into the tiny little boxes required of those who existed in that place.
I went in with my eyes open, knowing of the claustrophobic boxes, how the language pulled toward dogma and creed. I went in with my own language, my own protective wards, kept secret in my pockets. I went, tethered to those who stood outside, who could watch for me, who could pull me back if I got stuck in the tiny places, injured by the sharp corners, the barbed words, and the lack of fresh air to breathe.
I can view my time in that place as a setback, a wrong choice, a misstep. Or I can look at how it changed me and transformed me, how it prepared me for this moment, gave me courage, made me fierce. Although it left me with wounds, it did not take my essential Self from me: I am always new, always a dragon shedding her skin to become fresh and reborn again, but always the same essential me, growing and changing and developing.
I don’t want to give those eight years power by saying I should not have taken that journey, that the breach of Self was too destructive. Because although my ego took its hits, I didn’t lose my Self. And there were gifts in this journey too. The young people who were there with me taught me so much, so much that I bring with me now that I’m out in the outer world again. Those eight years were a necessary phase of my development. They changed me forever in good and powerful ways. They too were initiation, difficult initiation. Not a break in my line of learning, not a backward step–or if a backwards step, only part of the dance.
Anytime we willingly submit to the claustrophobia of a religious institution, we put ourselves in danger of either taking on the rules for ourselves, or of losing some essential confidence and courage and forcefulness as we make ourselves smaller in order to fit inside the boxes. Me, I’m so grateful now for the ones who tethered me while I was in the land of boxes, those who held the lamps for me to see my way out when I reached the point of banishment.
I called myself an exile when I left that place. As though it had ever been my true home. I can laugh now looking back, and see how even though the lines that draw my past (for a couple generations) ran straight through that place, it was never my home. I have always been my home.
And I look back today with gratitude for the expansiveness of the escape, for the fact that I can breathe, and run and explore, and call myself by my real name, and not have to look over my shoulder.
So many sacred journeys happen in three days. My sojourn was eight years. And now three years more have passed and finally I feel the new wings stretching out behind me. I am ready to fly again. Blessed be!
For #The100DayProject, artists choose an artful activity and do it every day for 100 days, recording their work, and posting about it every day. The project begins on February 23, and I decided to begin my Substack life by posting my daily creations here.
What is a book?
Is it words on pages between covers? Is it a box, a basket, a vessel of words and images? Is it a kit for your imagination? What makes a book a book? And what is the line between book and not/book? Or is there even a line?
One of my students, when I posed the question to a class, said,
Perhaps a definition isn’t so much about what a thing is as about how it is used.”
Wise young person.
My aim for #The100DayProject is to explore the spaces between what is “book” and “not/book.” I aim to make some traditional (though whimsical) books in the form of pages between covers, and some boxes, baskets, vessels of words and images, photographs, to expand the definition of what a book is, and explore how it may be used. . .
Can I create one book a day for 100 days? Perhaps I will have some days when I record the process of making one book over several days. I cannot let this work interfere with my daily work, so I give myself permission to make quick little zines on busy days, to call anything a book, and to create junk.
I will make a bōchord (library in the old English), a BOOK HOARD, a library of sorts.
bōc as Vessel by Beth Weaver-Kreider
The leaves of the beech quiver in the winter wind, rustling whispers, so many stories to tell,
Etymology: bokiz or bece to bōc, to book. Bark and leaves, cover and spine, the line of words across a page.
It is written in the trees, you see, not just cellulose and pulp, but in the very essence of the word: seeds of ideas, leaves, and bark.
Not only Goths but Gauls too saw forest as library. Livre from librum, the tender inner bark of the tree.
When he was a child, my father carved his name into the soft grey of the household beech. I found the letters there, the book of his childhood, the story of branches shading the quiet balcony, the pious lives, the quiet joy, the industrious aunts, and some words allowed to be spoken only by the whispering leaves.
Once there was a guardian beech watching over the river and the valley, serpent branches spreading shadows across the hill. But insects burrowed her barky pages until the book of her began to die. We honored her story, you and I, the best we could; we read the book of her until the end.
Here in the pages of my palms I cup this small wooden bowl you turned from the branch of the serpent-beech, a new vessel to contain magic much as the tree herself held her secrets, the livre, the living library, still here, alive.
Art Credit: “In the home of Felix Manz’s mother”/Plain Values Magazine
On the wintry evening of January 21, 1525, as a group of religious resisters gathered in a home in Canton Zurich, Georg Blaurock decided to commit himself to the path that he and his friends had been discussing for some time, the idea that baptism ought to be a choice instead of something done to infants, automatically making the child a member of the state church. Blaurock turned to his friend Conrad Grebel and asked him to baptize him, and the circle proceeded to baptize each friend in turn.
This wasn’t just a spiritual whim. The act of baptizing adults was a statement that they no longer saw their allegiance to the church, which was an arm of the state. They knew that to take this bold step would make them enemies of the state, and being discovered could mean imprisonment, exile, or torture and death. But they went ahead, following the dictates of their consciences.
May we today be as willing to resist Christian Empire and follow our consciences over unjust and harmful laws.
In the past decade, I have often thought of Uncle Mordecai’s advice to his niece Queen Esther. I paraphrase: “Who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?”
And here, thousands of years later, are we, in the generations following the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust. Here are we, who have been raised on the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien and his vision of the smallest and most vulnerable-seeming ones taking up the hardest task simply because it was laid on their shoulders. Our books and movies have been filled with people (often teenagers) taking stands against tyranny, fascism, Imperialism, oppression, and cruelty.
We’ve been primed and educated for the coming days.
Here are some of the things I am telling myself: 1. Limit your news intake to a few trusted sources. 2. Unplug as much as possible, especially from the dire and angsty and shrill. 3. Post and share images and stories–actual and fictional–of people resisting Empire. 4. Watch the inauguration or don’t watch the inauguration–do what your heart needs and don’t apologize to anyone for the choice you feel is right for you to make. 5. Differentiate between thoughtful satire and unkind snark. 6. At least, don’t punch down. Punch up. And keep it classy. 7. Express your feelings. 8. Listen to others expressing their feelings. Don’t minimize or explain them away. 9. Commiserate without contributing to negativity and panic. 10. Keep reaching out to your friends. Keep checking in on your friends. 11. Build larger and larger circles of community so no single person has to have the burden of holding you together when you fall apart. 12. In a time of destruction, create things. 13. In a time of cruelty, be inexplicably kind. 14. In a time of rampant lies, speak truth from your heart, and honor integrity. 15. Who do you admire? Emulate them. 16. Breathe, and breathe, and breathe. Stretch and breathe. 17. Use your power and privilege to shield and protect those with less. 18. Stand in the gap. 19. What are you willing to put on the line for others? 20. Do not let your voice be silenced. 21. Do not give money a voice. 22. stay grounded. Every day, meditate or pray or make a magic spell that goodness and peace will prevail.
Gratitude List: 1. Such a beautiful snowstorm (hmmm-I accidentally write snowstory, and I want to make that an official word, please) 2. So many circles of dedicated souls ready to stand up and speak out 3. Tea 4. I have finally found a tool that is helping me with task initiation and task completion. I am feeling so satisfied, and much more full of energy 5. Great horned owls calling through the darkness last night. May we walk in Beauty!
“Things don’t really get solved. They come together and they fall apart. Then they come together and fall apart again. It’s just like that. The healing comes from letting there be room for all of this to happen: room for grief, for relief, for misery, for joy.” —Pema Chödrön
“How will we ever reconcile with those from whom we feel so estranged? How will we forgive the wrongs we believe have been done? How will we be able to trust one another again? Those are the kinds of profound questions that many of us need to have answers to…but the hurts are so new, the pain so fresh, we are not sure when or how we will ever come to a point of healing. To be honest, I do not have answers to any of these questions, not right now, but that does not trouble me. Why? Because I know, over time, the Spirit will bring us to the answers we need. She will show us paths to healing we never imagined. I am confident she will slowly guide us to wholeness in a manner that is most just and most empowering for us. Therefore, I do not feel anxious about how I will forgive or rushed into relationships I am not ready to embrace. I may not be able to trust others yet, but I do trust the Spirit, and that is enough for now. I will follow where she leads and when she leads, knowing that what I cannot comprehend now, I will understand later.” —Steven Charleston, 2021
“The artist deals with what cannot be said in words. The artist whose medium is fiction does this in words. The novelist says in words what cannot be said in words. Words can be used thus paradoxically because they have, along with a semiotic usage, a symbolic or metaphoric usage. (They also have a sound—a fact the linguistic positivists take no interest in . A sentence or paragraph is like a chord or harmonic sequence in music: its meaning may be more clearly understood by the attentive ear, even though it is read in silence, than by the attentive intellect.)” —Ursula LeGuin
“Keep walking, though there’s no place to get to. Don’t try to see through the distances. That’s not for human beings. Move within, but don’t move the way fear Makes you move.” —by Rumi (Barks)
“I think pleasure is really the gateway to feeling connected and inspired.” —Dreamwork with Toko-pa
“Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.” ―Mary Oliver
“Now is the time to resist the slightest extension in the boundaries of what is right and just. Now is the time to speak up and to wear as a badge of honor the opprobrium of bigots.” —Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
“Our lives are a partnership with Spirit. We can choose to be active in this partnership or passive. We can opt out at any time, but we can also increase our involvement. We can grow, change and learn. We can do more good than we ever imagined possible. The key is in the relationship we have with our partner.” —Steven Charleston, 2025
“A common woman is as common as a common loaf of bread, and will rise.” —Judy Grahn
“The plan, a memory of the future, tries on reality to see if it fits.” —Laurence Gonzalez
“I saw the backyard cedar where the mourning doves roost charged and transfigured, each cell buzzing with flame. I stood on the grass with the lights in it, grass that was wholly fire, utterly focused and utterly dreamed. It was less like seeing that like being for the first time see, knocked breathless by a powerful glance. The flood of fire abated, but I’m still spending the power. Gradually the lights went out in the cedar, the colors died, the cells un-flamed and disappeared. I was still ringing.” —Annie Dillard
“When you walk a path you love, there is something deeper calling you forward on it, like a beautiful question that can never be answered.” —Toko-pa Turner
“A well-read woman is a dangerous creature.” ―Lisa Kleypas, A Wallflower Christmas
“Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism” —Martin Luther King Jr.
“Courage is an inner resolution to go forward despite obstacles. Cowardice is submissive surrender to circumstances. Courage breeds creativity; Cowardice represses fear and is mastered by it. Cowardice asks the question, is it safe? Expediency asks the question, is it politic? Vanity asks the question, is it popular? But conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when we must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but one must take it because it is right.” —Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“We are all silent witnesses to the drama of our own lives. We see behind the curtains. We know the origin of our story, the characters who fill its pages, and the main events that have carried us over perilous seas to where we find ourselves today. Only a small fraction of this saga ever gets told, even around the firelight of family, but we keep it in our hearts the way books were once written by hand. The story lives within us and finds its completion through us. We carry it forward in sacred procession, not knowing when our own role will end, but bound by faith to take our part for as long as love allows.” —Steven Charleston
“How will we ever reconcile with those from whom we feel so estranged? How will we forgive the wrongs we believe have been done? How will we be able to trust one another again? Those are the kinds of profound questions that many of us need to have answers to…but the hurts are so new, the pain so fresh, we are not sure when or how we will ever come to a point of healing. To be honest, I do not have answers to any of these questions, not right now, but that does not trouble me. Why? Because I know, over time, the Spirit will bring us to the answers we need. She will show us paths to healing we never imagined. I am confident she will slowly guide us to wholeness in a manner that is most just and most empowering for us. Therefore, I do not feel anxious about how I will forgive or rushed into relationships I am not ready to embrace. I may not be able to trust others yet, but I do trust the Spirit, and that is enough for now. I will follow where she leads and when she leads, knowing that what I cannot comprehend now, I will understand later.” —Steven Charleston
In the dream, I find five tiny creatures, all rodent-like. They’re all different species, and all at different stages of development, but they’re all extremely vulnerable, and need someone to take care of them. I am afraid even to pick up the smallest ones, because they’re so tiny, I am afraid the pressure of my fingers will harm them.
I find a terrarium-type of container, and I am really gratified to see them eating and drinking, even the tiniest one, which is like a tiny ball of fuzz. Even so, I am uncertain whether the littlest ones can possibly survive.
The scene shifts, and I am checking on the tiny creatures the following day. Today, however, they are frogs. In the way of dreams, they’re the same creatures, but frogs. One of the older ones is swimming in the water on its back, cradling the tiniest one in its arms. The others have all grown, and they’re looking healthy and satisfied. Even as frogs, it’s clear that they’re different species. I am incredibly relieved that they’re going to survive, and amazed that they are taking care of each other.
I used to have dreams about taking care of lost kittens or gerbils or hamsters that kept getting away and into danger. This one was very like those, but with the difference that there was a resolution of their safety at the end.
I’ve been using a new motivational app the past week (called Finch). It’s been so much more effective than my various methods of to-do lists that always seem to get lost or ignored. I feel like the tiny animals are about the tasks and goals I set for myself. Finally, for the first time in a long time, I am feeling like I have the focus and energy to manage the basic details.
I was hesitant to try it because it felt like just one more thing to do, and nothing else seemed to work to motivate me or give me energy, and why would adding one more thing be helpful? Somehow, this particular thing helps to motivate me in ways other systems have not. The app is very game-like, giving energy to a little bird every time I complete a task. I’ve begun to feel very tenderly about my own vulnerable little learning self as I tend to the needs of this little creature by keeping up with my tasks. No wonder my dreamlife is giving me tiny creatures to nurture.
I’m going to finish this visual series on Epiphany or the day after. I realize that daily accountable disciplines keep me working creatively, even (especially) when my energy is low, like now. They tell me that a time comes when you walk through the other side of this stage of Menopause, and the energy returns, and the daily aches are a little less intense. I’m trying to eat and to move my body in ways that help that process along. In the meantime, I’m focusing on getting my work done, and on keeping alive daily disciplines that will feed my creativity.
Soon, the #100DayProject will begin, and I am hoping to join that in order to keep some creative discipline alive. Sometimes I feel like I’m choosing between the words and the crafty creativity, so I’m hatching a project that will use both.
The phrase for today’s image is one of the steps I’m working on in my current novena. I’ve taken it from the Ereshkigal card in The Goddess on Earth Oracle by Lisa Levart.
I took this photo of part of a painting in the dentist’s office. Is it the way in, or the way out?
I usually choose five words or phrases or archetypes or ideas for each novena, for my focus during each decade of the daily rosary. For this novena, I chose five random cards from The Goddess on Earth Oracle, and they flow beautifully from one to the next:
Alligator: Primal Instincts
Ereshkigal: Accept rage and imperfection
Aphrodite: Awaken to Love
Arianrhod: Live Large
Guabancex: Stand in your power
In the center is the Owl: Knowledge, who is also Wisdom and Truth
A new Netflix show that makes me want to walk in the treadmill (’cause that’s when I watch shows)
Layers: colors, clothes, ideas
Challenges: Can you read X number of books in a year? Can you consciously eat your five servings of fruits and veggies in a day? Can you up the amount of time you spend moving your body every day?
Mockingbird Chronicles 