Little known fact: I’m going to be ordained on the 29th of March. This is, in essence, the primary reason I’ll be back in Santa Fe for three weeks (March 15-April 5*). The Eternal Life Church is an eclectic group of ordained ministers in a “church without walls.” No common creed, yet shared principles and mutual support to encourage each Minister to live his or her ministry in the world. To spread the light and the love, mmmm? Rather than copy-paste, here is the direct link to the Website: http://elcministry.org/purpose.shtml

Some of my favorite people in Santa Fe happen to be Ministers in the ELC, which is the primary reason I asked for ordination. For as long as I can remember, people have been asking me if I was going to become a minister; for the first time, here is a church that appears to be Big enough to hold my encounters with God that does ordination. Let’s just say that my “God box” merges out into infinity, and as far as the Quakers are concerned, we’re all already ministers. Ah so. Still, this feels right and timely.

I’ve gone through many drafts and ways of articulating what my ministry is. I’m choosing to be ordained at this time largely to have a formal blessing and commissioning by my community to live this increasingly wild, mystical, soul-full life to which I am dedicated. Moreover, my return to the Northeast, really does feel like a Calling, and I need to speak it out loud and have it mirrored back publically. I’m on Assignment. Sometimes I get the cosmic download from the Big One upstairs, and I’m out in the field coaxing luminous fibers into a form that can hold together a new fabric of creation.

I am an anchor between Heaven and Earth, a conduit of Being. Some of greatest Teachers in this work are trees who by their Being-ness reshape the landscape, give rest and respite, and communicate in a far broader network than most of us imagine by looking at the surface level. That, in essence, is my life and my Work.

Specifically, now I’m being called to dance in the current of the embodiment of the sacred. This is a wholeness of the Sacred Feminine, a balance of relationship especially between women, an embodiment of the sensual (don’t worry, the erotic poetry posting is in the works <big grin>).

That’s my day job dancing, laughing, weeping, screaming, feeling on my yoga mat…it is my night job, done while traveling in dreams, holding long conversations across distances. That’s what I’m doing when you don’t see me much; out in the world, I am anchoring a consciousness that is increasingly Fearless. I am learning how to love and be loved. And I’m teaching, walking in the world, and letting that fearlessness, grace, and ease soften and surrender me.

My ministry is truly a Being-ness, an existing. I am called here to be fully, totally, and radically all that I am, and in so doing open the space for others to do the same. It’s sensual, erotic, joyful, harsh, and really best described in poetry, in breath, in the light in my eyes, and the increasing lightness and grace of my movement. Likewise, as I seed and anchor this Being-ness here, I’m positioned to form an energetic anchor point in this area of the Northeast. The Land remembers it’s wholeness, its fecundity, even as it’s womb in many spots has been used harshly, mined for coal, and left dense or wasted. Mostly, it’s beautiful, and I’m here to work with the land and the people.

I’m not going to apologize that this post sounds a bit esoteric. I live in a world of metaphors and dreamscapes. And I’m watching reality restructure within and around me. That is enough. I will however, answer the three topics posed by my sponsor and the Minister of new ministries, as part of the ordination service.

1.) My vision of my ministry is that of a Healer and Teacher in Residence in the context of a community. Both by the depth of my practice seen in the quality of my living and by my teaching out in the world, I will be a resource and an anchor for consciousness, evolution, and growth. Specifically, I am developing a curriculum I call the Healer’s Journey to mentor and encourage others in the process of using the journey into wholeness (i.e. healing) as an offering of service to the world.

My intention, is to live fiercely and unapologetically in the wholeness of my being and call for that in all of my interactions.

My commitment is with the fullness of my being. I have made these vows before in the presence of the Divine as witnessed by the fullness of the Universe. Now I make them public.

2.) I invoke the essence behind the many names I am Called. I invoke Sarah—High Priestess, Mother of Nations, and my Root. I invoke Archangel Michael—Guardian of the Tree of Life, and Wielder of the Flaming Sword and the Everlasting Shield. With a loving heart and fierce eyes, I call on the image of Sulis-Minerva, Keeper of the Holy Springs and the Sacred well, bringer of health, wisdom-keeper, Warrioress who found her place in diverse cultures. I claim Sarasvati—River of Knowledge, Knower of Ancient Wisdoms, goddess of the Arts and Sciences, and divine expression.

3.) In Blessings I offer my service to the world and sing out the tone that seeds the new web of creation.

*

Yes, at the end of this you could call me Reverend. I will be able to perform weddings (and I suppose funerals…no one ever talks about that, so I wonder). I could see myself involved in some sort of chaplaincy work, and I can feel how the ordination will give me a certain weight in the official structures of the world, be they hospital or institutional. (Anyone know much about incorporation as a Non-Profit? Maybe Laughing Tree Space is a 501-c-3 in hiding?)

However respect for those who have taken a formal, academic, or institutional route to ordination, is part of why I’ve been so quiet about this. I realize, now, that Ordination, and this ordination at this time, is just too large and important a thing to keep quiet about. Nor can I shrug off the Knowing that I have been legitimately preparing, schooling, and training for this for my whole lifetime.

In the last three months, I can specifically remembering at least four people stopping to thank me for who I am and what I do in the world, even though they can’t necessarily articulate it in terms anyone else can understand. “I don’t know why I want to say this, but I really want to thank you for existing.” Just today, someone hugged me and said, “Thank you for being.”  Those words, especially unsolicited, encourage me. One woman said, “Maybe this sounds weird, but do you spend time in grave yards?…do you spend time talking with the living and the dead?”

I paused. Yes. No. Maybe so. I said, “Not specifically, but yes, I know what you mean.” I do walk in that space between the old life and the new, and I have started to notice that I am walking to the graveyards, and meeting the most amazing trees.

*(My train departs 13 March, arrives in Santa Fe 15 March; departs Santa Fe 5 April, and lands me back east 7 April. I’ll have layovers in Pittsburg and Chicago both ways, so anyone out there reading who wants to visit let me know.)

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