Rev. Catharine Is Currently
On Medical Leave

To Call on the Divine in Troubled Times

I dreamt of a fall moon service-sized ritual at sunset. The Stone Circle. A smallish group. Eric Eldritch, you had on your black tunic, only it was these striped, jagged yellow slashed lines. Jonathan White, you steadied me with your eyes. Patricia Althouse, Kailin Miller, and Patricia Robin Woodruff, you were there. Liliana Arrington, you […]

Shifting Stones of Fat and Love

This is a story of a young woman in her twenties, knowing she was powerful, glorious, radiant, sick and suicidal. She was fat, the fattest among her ceremonial colleagues. But she was powerful, physically and otherwise, and she knew it. And this is a story of a femme woman in her forties, no longer physically […]

Interior Traveler – The High Priestess

Today, I thought I’d talk about a particular card that’s been coming up for me. I hope, by way of discussing the way I look at the cards, this card in particular, and divination in general, to illuminate the way I use divination. I am not a Tarot expert. I have been reading since 1991, […]

Priestess Part 2:  Four Quarters

In 1996, in the company of a dear friend and sometime girlfriend (we had a boyfriend in common, but that’s another story), I went to what was then simply called Four Quarters Farm, a campground administered by the Church of Four Quarters, an interfaith, largely Pagan church. What follows is my account on this day, […]

Where Do the People Come From?

Axis mundi. Omphalos. Strange words to our English-hearing ears. Each expression means, in its own way, the Center of the Universe. The Axis Mundi might be the World Tree in any of a number of myths. The Omphalos, or Navel of the World, might be anywhere that is held most sacred, anywhere said to be […]

Lux Perpetua Luceat Eis

The dead are not dead; they are not under the earth… Moferere moferere eggun eggun… Lux perpetua luceat eis… The text above, in English, Yoruba and Latin, is the body of a three-part song that was written for Samhain, the Celtic—and now Pagan—celebration of the Mighty Dead, the ancestors. It was written by a largely […]

Are You At a Crossroads?

The event was Four Quarters Drum and Splash, a veritable feast of dancing, drumming, singing, and swimming, all over the US Independence Day weekend. I don’t remember the year, but it’s some time ago now. Ten years? Twelve? A long time ago. The ritual team had talked for a long time about this ceremony, main […]

The Beauty of the Stones: Part Two

My feet may yet be wanderin’ But my heart has found a home In the Center of Four Quarters In a Ring of Standing Stone. “The Center of Four Quarters” So what is the benefit of raising a Stone Circle in the middle of southern central Pennsylvania? For twenty years, hundreds of people have come […]

Stones Rising and Four Quarters: Part One

A memory. A memory with many words and images that will mean the most to those from Four Quarters, but that may paint a picture for others. At Four Quarters Interfaith Sanctuary, the high holydays are those around the raising of new Stones in the Stone Circle. I see rollers and ropes raise the Stones. […]

The Tide of Beltaine

Yesterday was May Day. Also International Workers’ Day (And St. Joseph the Worker Day). The day following Walpurgisnacht. The Swedes walked through the streets with torches and celebrate with bonfires for their first of May holiday. It’s an important moment in the turning year, and in the northern hemisphere, it is associated with holidays of […]