Rev. Catharine Is Currently
On Medical Leave

Yemaya Assesu and Spiritual Guests

I have written about spiritual pillaging. And about spiritual tourism. And now I write about spiritual guests. In some traditions I have been a guest; more than just a visitor, but not a full member of the community. My time with the Religious Society of Friends, also called the Quakers, and my time with African […]

Brigid Lady of Fire and Water

NB: If you’d like to see the recorded class/discussion from last night, please join The Way of the River Community Facebook Group. You can search “The Way of the River Community” in the upper left-hand corner of your Facebook page to find us. It’s a private group, so you’ll need to ask to be added, […]

Who Is This Priestess? Part 3

So after the preceding posts, some questions come to mind, one of which is, What does it mean to be a priestess? Or at least, What does it mean for me? There are several others, but I can’t speak to all of these in one post, but I can speak to the first question, and […]

Water’s Many Embraces

The Love of Water When I was a small person, before I reached the wise age of 14 or so, I would go for walks. I would sing as I walked: Songs I knew from the Top 40, songs from church, songs from the alternative mixtapes my best friend made for me, or songs I […]

Imbolc, Brigid, Fire, and Water

Today is Imbolc. Or Imbolc Eve, if you prefer. Some celebrate it on the first of February, some on the second. In any event, it is a Cross-Quarter Day, one of the holidays between the solstice and equinox, and a holy day I love. Why do I love it? In part because if it the […]

Akhilandeshvari – The Divine Reality of Brokenness

Many thanks to Karen Johnston at irrevspeckay.wordpress.com for inviting me to write for her site as a guest. Her post, “Befriending Death,” appeared here a couple of days ago, and is a truly insightful piece on the pace of death in spiritual practice. What follows here is the meditation I shared with her readers on Akhilandeshvari: […]

Yemaya and the Ancestors

Yemaya Assesu, Assesu Yemaya Yemaya Olodo, Olodo Yemaya. That’s a song I know—one tiny sliver of knowledge pertaining to the great orisha, Yemaya, the lady of the sea, “she whose descendants are as numerous as the fish.” Today, 7 September, is one of her feast days (as well, I have just learned, as International Goddess […]

Queen of Sorrows

Today I am sad. Today I am thinking of all the parents of Black children, especially boys. I am thinking of the parents having to explain somehow that this culture makes their beloved children targets. That the world is not safe. That the people who are “supposed” to keep all of us safe are some […]

In Remembrance of Me…

Do this in remembrance of Me… I remember sitting at an Easter Vigil liturgy, the highest, holiest liturgy of the year in the Roman Catholic calendar. I was a little incense-drunk and feeling kind of spiritually woozy from the religious excesses of Holy Week (more on that later, if you’re interested). I looked up at […]

Mary Mother of God

When I was living in the tension of the hinge between Roman Catholicism and Paganism, I helped to make a ceremony. I had been exploring what Mary the Mother of Jesus, who I called “the Blessed Mother” at that time, meant to me. I attended Mass and I attended Full Moon Services. I was, in […]