The Spiral

Tending Soul Soil

For years recovery and healing were often shaped in terms of continuum.  While nods were given to the fact that walking out life is rather non-linear, that framework couldn’t hold the reality of how humans engage in finding balance and renewal.  For me, the better image is either found in weather or found in spiral.

The spiral allows for the revisting of what has been unearthed and held.  It sits next to, but not in the same position, as the first threshold.  It allows one to walk a sacred circle that moves deeper as an act of gentle descent.  The beginning and the end are relatively unseen.  It allows for a story to find clarity and coherence.  It reassembles broken glass but allows for its rearrangement, for pieces to be removed, for other pieces to be made and afixed - like a stained glass window in our own sacred chapel.

The spiral bears a sort of witness about hearth, about personal story, and about community.  It exposes myths and beliefs, history and stories, and recounters the recovery process for a better imaginary.

It offers food for thought about items I’ve doodled through and contemplated.  It’s not meant to be a defensive space - but rather a space to breathe and regenerate soul soil.  It’s okay to process and engage beliefs and stories held like water in the sea.

It embarks on new journeys like the rediscovery of nature, the challenges to human placement within it, the global impact of hierarchy versus partnership, and the realization that a worldview isn’t absolute or even objective - but rooted in land, ecology, ancestors, and connection.

It’s in the stories that are told, real or imaginary.  It's held in outcomes that are written across the landscape and etched on the horizon.  It’s in the missing sound of birds in winter and the absence of bees in Spring.  It’s in realizing that community is also non-human, and that life comes from death - into perpetuity.