Here I am with the abundant produce from our Sedona garden in the late sixties. My sister Connie joins me on the right. I lived in the old stone house in the center, named St. Exupéry after the author of Wind, Sand and Stars and The Little Prince.
What is the most important transitional moment in your life? Did a space open up and change you? Was a seed planted or a flame of wonder kindled?
Our latest Fire and Light podcast, “The Seed and the Space that Changed You,” addresses these questions. Dave Denny posted the meditation he wrote for the podcast, calling it “Seed, Flame, Opening: A Soulscape Meditation.” I love how he focuses on the four elements: earth, air, fire, and water.
My transitional moment occurred fifty-seven years ago on August 17, 1967, when I arrived in Sedona, Arizona to join the Spiritual Life Institute. My contemplative life began and my life-long love-affair with the desert.
I lived in a little “hermitage” made of yellow Coconino sandstone. I learned how to grow a garden, can and freeze vegetables, and cook for large numbers of people. I looked at the full moon as if I’d never seen it before, amazed that it was so bright, I could even see my “moon shadow.”
I learned about Carmelite spirituality, the Fathers and Mothers of the Desert, the importance of writing as a spiritual practice, the beauty of prayer and liturgy, community and service.
I read life-changing books that still inspire me: The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton, Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh.
What people and books have influenced your life? What are your treasured spiritual practices? What landscape speaks most strongly to your heart and makes you come alive? How does that landscape affect your soulscape?
We all don’t need to write memoirs, but it’s good to be attuned to our own story, to the way our lives unfold “under the Mercy.” How do you tell your own story to your friends, your children, your grandchildren, to yourself?
Dear Tessa,
I too fell in love with the desert. I was there at Nada in Sedona, Arizona in 74′ I believe for a month. I was in the raucous inner city of Chicago. You were so good to let me come without paying if I helped clean and supply the hermitages for half a day and then the rest of the time was free for me to soak in the silence of God. How I loved those starlit nights and the profound silence there, and the chapel beneath the ground with the Blessed Sacrament. You may not have known it but I left Sedona firmly convinced that the Lord wanted me alone in solitude and shortly thereafter I went to the mountains and hollers of WV and lived in a hermitage setting for nearly 40 years…”Be still and know that I am God.” And He spoke.
Amazing reconnection, Jeanne, thank you!