Beloved-

Some of you have been with The Way of the River since the very beginning in 2015, and some just arrived this week! Welcome to all. Here is a slightly updated edition from March of 2018. Enjoy!

I have written about being “nice” at the expense of our own feelings and well-being. (Let me know if you need another copy of that Reflections and I’ll be happy to send it to you personally.)

This week, I’m sort of writing about Cinderella. That is to say, I am writing about what “nice” wishes it could be, what it tries to be, what it impersonates. Nice is the unhappy, grasping sister, but there is another one who is real but kept hidden away, who has been given the glass slipper, and whose foot fits just right.

Graciousness. Grace. That which is given, unearned, whether to do, to be, or to receive.

Grace in religious contexts is generally considered to be an unearned blessing from the Divine. Something that arrives unexpectedly, something like a random act of kindness from the Universe.

There is also the quality of physical grace. When I think of grace, I think not only of the movement of athletes or dancers or actors. I think also of how people walk, hold their bodies when in conversation, what they do with their hands, and how those actions invite people into deeper relationship.

And even more relevant, the movements of someone who makes others feel at ease. The tender pouring of tea for someone who has come in from the cold, and the inclusion of a few cookies/biscuits while you’re at it. The embrace that is welcoming without being an imposition. Speaking clearly and well without taking up all the air in the room.

And then there is simply the grace of human giving. This is the grace that knows that one does not merely say to the grieving, “Tell me if you need anything.” Grace offers, “How about I come over at 6 tomorrow and do some laundry and make you dinner.” Grace in this case may not even take no for an answer, but just show up with the lasagna, a stack of mindless magazines, and a laundry basket.

The quality of grace puts others at ease and lets them know they are loved. Grace lets them know that no part of them makes them unworthy of love.

Nevertheless, grace has the boundaries that niceness lacks. Grace can say no, gently but firmly, and grace can take care of the one who brings it and inhabits it.

Finally, grace is a way of being, and of accepting the gifts that are given to one and sharing those gifts kindly and well with the rest of the world. It is giving without thought of reciprocity, not out of a sense of martyrdom or resentment, but rather because grace comes easily when it comes.

After all, the characteristic of grace par excellence is that it is a gift. It is a quality of personhood that may be practiced and that may grow, but it is ultimately a gift both to the one who shares it and to the ones who receive it.

And yet, as I read this issue of Reflections in 2021, I am so aware of all the people who are practicing grace in this time of pandemic. Who have made a decision to make their lives into gifts. Who are leaving presents of food or toys or clothing on their neighbors’ steps. Who are working in positions that save the world and move the needle of justice, help bend the moral arc of the universe one agonizing click at a time. In this sense, grace is more than a gift, it is a spiritual practice, and one which benefits all who offer it and all who receive it whether they know they’re getting it at all.

I am so aware that this post is only the beginning of a conversation. Please post your thoughts to The Way of the River Facebook Community (and join if you use that platform and aren’t among us already!).

Much love and contemplation-

~Catharine~

2021 PS – I still have room in two daytime spiritual deepening groups. For more information about these supportive, tender, challenging, brave spaces, see my page on the topic, and feel free to schedule a free call to talk about whether or not one might be the right fit for you.

2021 PPS – I mentioned The Way of the River Facebook Community above. I invite those of you who use Facebook to join us, especially for our regular weekly practice of acknowledge our own “beautiful faces and complex natures,” as the writer Annie Dillard has said. It is a powerful and challenging practice, and one I invite you all into.

Dear hearts –

For the last twenty-eight days, I have been on a discernment retreat.

I have thought about The Way of the River, about my life, my ministry, my work in the world. I have considered my hopes for those I love and those I don’t know, and for Earth. And I have pages and page of notes (we always say notes are “copious.” Why is that? Well, these notes are, I suppose, copious.)

In my notes, I’ve realized, I’ve come back, again and again, to the concept of clarity. In my lessons from my business coach who also has a Master’s of Divinity degree and is trained in a Sufi lineage as a master teacher, we talk about some essential things over and over. We talk about the willingness to be surprised by the Divine and what we might be shown or how we might be guided if we are open enough to see/sense/hear/feel/perceive what is being offered. We talk about the importance of asking for what one is trying to perceive or receive. We talk about Love over and over and over. (This topic is, as you might guess, my favorite thing.)

But I mentioned clarity first. Clarity. In Sufism, is believed to be enhanced by the cleaning, the “polishing” of the Jewel of one’s heart. It is also enhanced by removing veils between oneself and the Divine. Practically speaking, this polishing, cleaning, clear-“seeing” state is achieved through prayer, fasting, moderation, silence, reading and copying holy texts, and chanting, among other things.

One could say that clarity is the heart of discernment. At least, it is arguably the center of discernment.

On my retreat, one of the teachers was Buddhist, and one was Christian. The Buddhist teacher—he’s a Zen priest—talked about both clarity and openness as ways forward on the road of discernment, the road of wise thinking and right action.

I have not had much exposure to Buddhist teachings. Not much beyond my “Eastern” religions classes and the occasional Thich Nhat Hahn book. But my teacher in this class brought concepts, practices, and stories forward all of which work toward clarity.

He, like my other teacher, talked about Veils. And he talked about them in terms of the Veils of patterning, of scripting, of bias, and perception. If we are to know the truth of the world, we must learn the truth of ourselves. And as we engage the world with friendly curiosity, we learn about ourselves.

In Zen, of course, one of the main ways to learn about oneself, and especially about the mars on the mirror, the Veils between oneself and truth, is through meditation.

I spent some time thinking about what is meditation for me? What is it? How can I do it? Why do it? Do I do it at all?

I spent further time considering what I do when I “pray”? That is what I call what I do to connect with the truths within me and the truths that are offered to me when I am still and silent after singing or chanting. Still and silent.

I’m still thinking about these questions, but I want to consider more that my teachers offered.

They come from a quotation by Rev. Howard Thurman, in which he admonishes, “Become quiet enough, still enough to hear the sound of the Genuine.”

Rev. Thurman goes on, from his Commencement speech at Spellman College in 1980, describing what he imagines we all ultimately want:

I want to feel that I am thoroughly and completely

understood, so that now and then, I can take my guard

down and look out around me and not feel that I will be

destroyed with my defenses down. I want to feel

completely vulnerable, completely name. Completely

exposed and absolutely secure.

Thurman is describing the desire for the Genuine. For our own genuine selves, for the deep truths of the world, for the Divine. What is most essential. After all, the Genuine, the Real, the True, can also be called God. The Holy. Goddess. Ultimate. Goddex. Sacred.

In the first quotation above, Rev. Thurman notes quiet and stillness as essential characteristics of “hearing” the Genuine. I want us to notice the noise of our lives. The constant, unrelenting noise of the world and of our own activities. My chair squeaks. My typing is like a Gatling gun. (I never took typing, but I was a piano major, and so my typing always wears the letters off the keys in no time flat.) My own breath and sigh and groan. The crack of my ankle as I turn it gently where it aches or my back when I do “Cat Cow” yoga in my seat.

Can I notice these things without judgment? Without aversion? Just noticing and accepting that they are here. I am here. My body is here. I am breathing, my heart is beating.

I also want to notice the movement of my life—what is not still. And even my resistance to stillness. “Find a stillness…Let the stillness carry me.” The words from the Unitarian Universalist grey hymnal come to mind right away, especially, “carry me.” Stillness. Stillness. Stillness. I find as I type that I long for stillness.

I long for…

I long for silence, is what it is. Quiet that is beyond the ceasing of noise. Stillness that is beyond ceasing movement. Silence.

Eventually, I have been told, silence becomes a buoyant friend. Like someone who holds us, carries us, enfolds us. And when we are with that silence, then we can see what arises within us and simply regard it, behold it, realize and name that it is. Without critical judgment or meanness of any kind, simply acknowledging and breathing and being in the silence. Being in the silence and allowing ourselves to perceive without veils more and more of what is patterned or scripted or habitual in our lives.

What is perception and what is interpretation?

If my hope is – and it is – to be as genuinely myself as possible in any given moment, then I need to let the stillness carry me, let the silence enfold me and comfort me and be my friend.

If my hope is – and it is – to be as present as possible, as truly and deeply here in every unique moment as I can, then I need to learn to see where my patterning, my pre-determined wiring shows up, rather than my deep Presence.

If my hope is – and by now you know I’m going to say that it is – to be as loving as possible, then I need that Presence I just wrote about. And to find that Presence, I need to “incline the ear of my heart,” as Benedict of Nursia wrote, incline the ear of my heart to what I find most genuine, real, good, and true.

And it seems likely, given the wisdom I have received these last weeks and at other times, that quiet, stillness, and a deep silence of the heart, an opening and waiting, is one way to learn to be Real. (More on The Velveteen Rabbit later, for those of you who are interested. )

I want to be Real. Authentic. True.

Genuine.

And I reckon you do too. So perhaps consider slowing down enough that you can hear (and even see) the noise around you. And then be still in it. Be still. Just breathe and feel the pressure, speed, and sound of the breath. And find the silence within you. The silence that is friendly, buoyant, loving.

Blessings, my friends –

Catharine

Already know you want more information about Going into the Dark? More info lies here.

Dear hearts –

Here we are, the week of United States Thanksgiving, or perhaps Thanks-Grieving, or perhaps ThanksGaia. Or perhaps this holiday is not one you celebrate at all. For others, it is the most important family holiday of the year.

That importance certainly shows in the number of people who travel for the holiday. More, even, than for secular or religious Christmas.

And this year, the question of whether or not to travel makes a holiday that is already fraught even more so. How safe it is to travel, to spend time indoors, to hug those we have been longing to be close to for months? How safe do we think we need to be for other loved ones, for our communities, for ourselves, and for the most vulnerable among us? And how much do we long to be together with our nearest and dearest, our truly beloved ones, our Families of Blood, Choice, or Spirit?

I pray for your good health and whatever peace or disquiet your heart requires.

There is another holiday, though, one coming soon, that is both very dear and very clearly full of love, light-and-dark lessons, peace, and tenderness.

While in years past and in contemporary witchy circles, it is known as Yule – just as one might say, “Yuletide” to mean the whole time around the solstice through the secular new year – we can also just acknowledge it as the moment, the time when Earth/Gaia passes closest to the sun/Sol, and when the Northern Hemisphere is tilted furthest away.

Every year on the solstice, the only electric lights my wife and I have in the house are the twinkly lights of the season. Otherwise, we light the house with candles and lanterns. Sometimes we make cookies – and oh, in the morning, do we lament that we have no dogs anymore and Julie cleans the kitchen floor herself! We pay attention to the setting of the sun, and we read Tarot cards for our celebration of the new year together. We honor what has passed with celebration, lamentation, or merely observance, and we watch the light diminish.

And there is something else that happens for the solstice. Five times it has happened, five years in a row, and now we are onto the sixth turn around the sun.

On the Saturday before the solstice—this year, that Saturday is the 19th of December—The Way of the River folks gather on Zoom for Going into the Dark, a day of peace and tenderness. (Yes, it has been on Zoom for the last six years. This is no Johnny-come-lately Zoom event, though it does intentionally have no bells and whistles.) We gather in our pyjamas. We gather and knit in rocking chairs. We gather from our beds. We gather with our video off. We gather lounging on sofas. We gather from our offices. We gather together to feel together, connected, tenderly held, and whole.

Especially in this year when so many of us yearn for connection, long for the company of people whose company we cannot have, pine for the touch of beloved family, especially now we need this event.

At least I do. Do you?

Going into the Dark is a retreat during which we explore what it means to move through the darkness (both metaphorical and physical), to prepare for the solstice, to make a journey in which we learn to see in the dark. In the Charge of the Star Goddess, She says, “Seek me in the Light that is in the Darkness, and seek me in the Darkness itself,” and so some do that. Some of us seek encounter with the holy. Others prepare to mark the holiday of the shortest day as “the reason for the season.”

Others of us just desperately need to feel held, safe as we can be among other tender minds and hearts, comforted (even in challenge), and in the presence of magic.

Meister Eckhardt said that if the spiritual life is a journey at all, it is a quarter inch long and a mile deep. That is the approach of Going into the Dark. To spend time with our own hearts going deep, deep into unexplored territory, and yet to go while being held in a loving, careful, caring “container,” if you will.

That container is built and maintained by the care I take with setting up the calls for the event. Not only that care, but also the tenderness of those who share the retreat with you, all of you together.

We will come together and inhabit four calls (It is my sincerest hope that our time is neither spent, nor wasted, nor killed, but rather, “inhabited.”) over the course of Saturday the 19th. We begin at 11 am Eastern and end around 6:30 or 7 pm Eastern. Each call is accompanied by an (entirely optional) PDF with journal prompts, images, and queries based on the content of the call just previous. Some people really enjoy using the PDFs to continue the work of retreat time, to journal, write, draw, go for a walk, or take a nap. And yes, taking a nap can be an absolutely perfect way to integrate material. <smile>

However you integrate the material can be perfect because Going into the Dark is, as I like to say, “an empowerment-based event.” What do I mean by that?

I mean that your participation need be led by your heart. Dip in and out. Spend time between calls taking care of family responsibilities that really need doing.

Or maybe you can find a way for someone else to take the kids for the day, let the dogs out, make lunch, so that you can give yourself the gift of a spiraling day of reflection and care.

Empowerment-based retreat also means that even if I pose a question to the group, you are free to say that you would rather pass. It also means that you are always free to ask for what you need, though I cannot promise I can fulfill that need, I will always listen.

That said, every year, Going into the Dark goes deeply into our hearts. This year will be no different. This year, though, we do not go to the center of a horizontal labyrinth. This year we will not discover the secret magic enclosed by a copse of trees in a cemetery. This year, we follow a traveler from the third millennium BCE, on her quest to know, to learn, to find her realm and her tools.

This year, we will encounter both threats and assistance.

This year, we will relinquish what we grasp until there remains so, so little left that we can gather all we need.

All that said, I invite you, as Rev. Deanna Vandiver says, “No matter what your calendar tell you,” to come to Going into the Dark. Join us. Join me. Join our 5000-year-old friend as we travel so far that when we make our way home, we can know it for the first time (Thank you, T.S. Eliot, for that lovely turn of phrase.)

Come and learn to see in the close and holy darkness.

Come and learn just a bit about the miles-deep spiritual life.

Come and go into the dark with me.

If you’d like to know more about the “flagship event” of The Way of the River, simply click on Going into the Dark, and then if you have questions, you can always contact me directly.

Blessings of the close and holy darkness, my friends, blessings.

~Catharine~

Dear hearts –

As they’d say in the nineteenth century, “I fear you have the advantage of me,” but then again, you may not. I write to you from November 4th, when the United States Presidential election remains undecided, runoffs and litigation and recounts abound. Trump supporters yelling outside a polling place, “Stop the vote! Stop the vote! Stop the vote!” from other Republicans saying, “We must make sure to count every vote.” Biden saying that he has run as a Democrat, but if elected, will govern as an American. Just all kinds of stuff running around.

There are times, my friends, there are times, when all a girl can do is look at the blinking cursor and feel the ache in her hips from having sat in her office chair too long.

There are times, beloved, when all I can do is curse my poor, aching, sprained knee for hurting in my unbelievably unergonomic seating arrangement.

There are times, when snickerdoodles seem like the snack of champions, because, hello, millions of Americans apparently think my marriage is meaningless, the lives of people of color don’t matter, police freedom to kill matters more than the lives lost, and transgender youth deserve to suffer as they look toward an adulthood marked by danger and exclusion. Children being taken from their families, children who should be in arms, as a deterrent to asylum-seeking, that’s okay.

No matter who wins (has won?) the Presidential election, these things are true. So snickerdoodles are the snack of champions, friends, and that’s all there is to it. My lovely wife has said over and over that food has no moral valance, and for once, I’m going to choose to believe her and just have a cookie. She’s also reminded that we don’t yet know where things are, so I’m going to drink this ginger beer, and look forward to this email appearing in my own Inbox, and things being different by then.

Oh, and the other thing I’m going to do?

I’m going to the Going into the Dark webpage just to look at how pretty it is!

https://thewayoftheriver.com/going-into-the-dark-2020

Enjoy, my friends, and may the lure of introspection and healing time together be of some solace.

Phoning it in with love –

Catharine

Dearests-

Okay, yes, here we are. It’s the day before the United States official Election Day, the last day US citizens can cast our ballots. I, happily, live in a state that has had mail-in or drop-off voting for some time now (Oregon), and so I received notice of when my ballot had been received from it’s box AND when it had been counted. Ahhhhhhhhhhh…. A sigh of relief. I have done the harm reduction I can do by voting, and that not only that, but I have the relative sense of security of my vote being counted.

I mention all of this even though I know that many of you are not in the States. Because the United States elections up and down the ticket matter to the world. The Presidential election, for sure, but the Senate and House races, down-ticket races in states that are “purple” (Go, Peter Buck!—my dear brother who is running for the state house in Pennsylvania, an essential swing state.), all the way to city councils, mayoral races, school boards and other local votes and referenda. Remember, local officials decide all kinds of things about land use, clean water, construction, education, hell, they make it so that there are enough sidewalks (with curb cuts, thank you very much!) and bus lines to go around.

All that said, that’s not really what I want to talk to you about. Yes, do your harm reduction and VOTE, but that’s done, right? You know what you’re going to do, or you’re watching the election with interest from elsewhere. ‘Nuff said.

I want to talk with you about something related to my Very Exciting News!

The Way of the River has entirely new, entirely revamped, ENTIRELY new look and content. Not only is the color brown only in the images of actual forest rivers (which I do love), and nowhere in the rest of the images or the theme, but the whole feel and look and content is different. I am using lessons I have learned from The Heart of Business, and I couldn’t be happier with the result.

That said, I invite you to visit, and especially to visit the “Is This You?” page. (If you want to see some truly priceless photos of me from the ‘90s, the middle of the About Catharine page is fun too, but not required, by any means.)

The “Is This You?” page speaks about those of us who have hunted for a place where we can really find “the More” of spiritual depth. It’s about those of us who have a religious home but want a more profound experience of spirit. It’s about those of us who are neurodivergent or genderfluid, trans, or non-binary. It’s about those of us who are ambivalent about or alienated from traditional religion.

And so I’m going to share come copy from that page because I want to celebrate those of us who find ourselves reflected among this group. Not everyone I work with is isolated from beloved religious community – certainly, you don’t have to be, to be a part of The Way of the River – but many of us know what that particular pain feels like. And so in celebration, joy, and invitation, I give you, “Is This You?”

• Maybe you were deeply involved with a religious community, but have since been alienated, isolated, or rejected by that community, Despite loving that community, the feelings you had, or the sense of Divine connection you felt, you now feel utterly unwelcome to return and long for someplace to be safe and seen in your spirituality.
• Maybe you are a trans, genderfluid, or gender non-binary person who doesn’t feel at home–perhaps not even physically and emotionally safe in a religious congregation or community. Still, you have a deep longing for spiritual connection. Maybe other people’s prejudices have worn down your soul, so that you feel like looking for connection to the Sacred is a losing proposition altogether.
• Maybe you’re a religious leader yourself, but you’ve discovered the sad and frustrating thing about leading a religious community: you came to this work because you loved congregational life, but now you have no place to be ministered to, instead of always doing the ministering.
• Maybe you find it difficult to explain how deeply you long for the Divine. Maybe it even feels a little embarrassing to try, because you can’t imagine that anyone else will understand. Do words like yearning, longing, or seeking speak to you?
• Maybe you’re a committed member of a religious community because it really nourishes parts of who you are, because you love the community there, and because it’s comforting to go someplace each week where people know parts of you and your life. You find, though, that you long for a “deep dive” into the waters of spirituality, something More, something that maybe you can’t quite imagine, but are drawn to anyway.
• Maybe you identify as a freak–someone in the kink community, a modern primitive, a fire dancer and burner, someone who has always felt a little “out-of-bounds”– and so maybe you find it difficult to fully show up in spiritual communities. They feel like places you cannot bring your whole self to the table, where you are sure you will be judged, misunderstood, or rejected.
• Maybe you’re a neurodivergent person and you find it difficult to do the things that religious communities often demand–being in loud, crowded places; sitting still; making eye contact; and touching people to greet them. Maybe you need different things from what some other people need, and one of those needs is the compassionate touch of the Divine.
• There just doesn’t seem to be anywhere where you can be truly seen and heard in your longing for intimacy with the Infinite. And though you go back again and again, hoping it will be different, you find yourself disappointed each time.​​

You may be drawn to work with me if you

• are committed to your own authenticity — nothing fake or put on because a religious (or any other) group says it has to be;
• believe in the value of your own personal spiritual experience;
• are willing to put in the time it takes to develop a deeper relationship with Spirit;
• and know that when your spiritual life and practice is in order, the rest of your life feels better, clearer, deeper, and more joyful.

And so, dear friends, if any of this sounds like you, if any of this resonates with you, I invite you to a beat. To take a breath. And then consider whether you might like to work in a small group with other people who will understand where you’re coming from, other people who will know what you’re about, where you’ve been and how you’re doing.

And then simply email me for an assessment, a consultation call to talk about where you are and where you’d like to be spiritually, and maybe we can find a place to work together fruitfully, whether in a group, class, or individually. When so much is uncertain, so much is worrisome, having a companion along the way can be just the thing. And I’d love just to get to know you, in any case!

In these unsettled times, I offer you blessings, blessings, blessings.

Rev. Catharine

PS – Want to see the new website in all its glory: https://thewayoftheriver.com!

PPS – Going into the Dark is coming!! The annual winter solstice retreat will be on your doorstep before you know it!