God on a Wing: Winter Rewilding Nature Altar
Setting up a seasonal nature altar within your home is a meaningful way of attuning to the sacred rhythms of the natural world. This post will inspire a craft that will have you engaging with key elements within the Rewilding Wheel.
Our family keeps a nature altar, a way to not only bring the out-doors in, but to also attune our senses to the phases of the seasons, the beauty of the natural world, and as a portal to the deep wisdom that resides in the wild. This sacred space has taken up various iterations in the years we have done this practice. When the household was generally filled with very little people, these silks were piled high with sticks and stones; every item outside was a treasure and little hands begged that every one was brought indoors. To an uneducated heart, this space would have looked like a random pile of rocks, but to us it was our Ebenezer. Our collection of nature was our stone of help—a waymarker that provided direction and clarity to our sacred belonging to and with the Earth community. This pile dynamically grew through the year, representing so many different journeys and encounters with awe and wonder.
Now that half of my children have their toes in teen-hood, this space is taking up more thoughtfulness and creativity. Furthermore, we are using this altar to mark our seasonal journey through the Rewilding Wheel. This has given a bit more focus and direction, and invites our family to pay attention to particular theophanies (God-showings) within the natural world.
The Rewilding Wheel is a sacred circuit that seeks to locate the wisdom of universal nature symbols with one’s particular homescape and spiritual formation. By locating the psychospiritual patterns found within the natural world to a particular place, the ancient wisdom inherent in the cardinal directions and elements takes on a practical shape and invites a focused seasonal practice. In this way, the Rewilding Wheel is unique as it invites a sacred process of remembering and recovering relationships within various ecosystems throughout your bioregion. This is a practice of sacred bioregionalism—where the particularity of our place educates our soul and brings us closer to Spirit that resides there as well.
The Rewilding Wheel was developed to be an integration of critical aspects of the cycles and seasons of nature that would bring one into a deep sense of belonging within their particular bio-regions. This is a move from an ego-centric posture on the planet to an eco-centric one where one’s whole identity is rooted and interconnected with all of creation. This posture requires sensory participation and deep paying attention to the phenomena that is going on about one in their surrounding landscapes.
“To be rooted is perhaps the most important and least recognized need of the human soul.”
-Simone Weil
For those of you practicing this sacred circuit, we know that the season of Winter is associated with the cardinal direction of North, the element of Air, and the bioregion of the Mountain or High Place. This is a time of deep darkness that is held in tension with the lightness of breath, bound to the found-wisdom that is associated with mountain tops and high places. A symbol for this season is that of the bird, a being who rides the wind currents and alights in high places with ease. This is the season of the work of the Spirit, who breathes inspiration and insight into our souls.
This wheel invites seeing the Sacred with sensuality, an embodiment through the elements that gives form and shape to that which has been traditionally transcendent. The Spirit is air. The Judaeo Christian cosmology tells a story of when God breathes air into the lungs of the first human being (“then the Lord God formed adam from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and adam became a living being”; Genesis 2:7). The Hebrew word for this primordial breath of life (ruach, or pneuma in Greek) also means Spirit. God’s Spirit is God’s breath, signaling the sub stratosphere itself. All that we and all other beings need for survival, is the animating power of the Sacred in our midst—God swirling and whirling around us, making all things live. The research and study of ecotheologian Mark Wallace in his book When God Was a Bird: Christianity, Animism, and the Re-Enchantment of the World (2018) looks at how the Spirit is generally figured as a winged animal, a bird. His claim is that within this tradition is an animistic understanding of God, that the divine actually is visible, enfleshed, incarnate even through the more-than-human world. This idea of a winged bird God is something I am meditating on and allowing to work on me in this Winter season. Pair this holy avian form with the mystery of the mountains during these dark and dormant months, and my goodness! There is a treasure trove of wisdom into which to huddle.
We have been putting together our Winter Nature Altar slowly following Epiphany last week and the closing of the Christmas season. Guiding this practice are the thematic elements found within the Rewilding Wheel. We have all been making these stone feathers—what a fun way to play with the form of mountain and air!—and wanted to share this seasonal altar craft with you.
I’m grateful to the artist Marisa Redondo for this inspiration within the pages of Nature Art Workshop (Quarto Publishing Group, 2018). This was the seasonal wild-craft offered to registrants of the Winter Rewilding Retreat as well. Such beautiful stone feathers were created!
This simple stone design reminds us of the primordial presence of the mountains and high places in our bioregion, and how this location is often associated with wise-people and sages. Pairing it with the intricate beauty of the feather is a mediation on God as a feathered bird and the belief that all beings, including more-than-human animals, are imbued with divine presence.
Feather Stones
1. Go outside and find a rock that seems to speak to you. Ask the rock permission to take it home. This is a great reason to intentionally go out to the mountains or local high place to find a rock or stone!
2. Gather your materials: stones, craft paints, matte varnish, paint brushes and paint pallet. We chose white, light blue, light green and a gorgeous gold (a precious element found deep within mountains!) for our paints and love the use of wax paper for our palette. While you work, listen for birdsong outside your window, or the sound of the wind in the trees. See this as a sacred presence around you while you create this item for your seasonal altar.
3. Apply a thin and even layer of varnish to your rock. Once dry, paint a thin line centered on your rock with a small round paintbrush.
4. Paint a feather tuft outline around the centerline.
5. Paint V-shaped lines to divide the feather into sections.
6. Fill the tip of your feather with fine lines.
7. Create a triangular shape within the feather by painting two lines in each section.
8. Fill the area outside the triangles with fine, feather-like lines.
9. Add dots or embellishments along triangular border.
White-Eyes
BY MARY OLIVER
In winter
all the singing is in
the tops of the trees
where the wind-bird
with its white eyes
shoves and pushes
among the branches.
Like any of us
he wants to go to sleep,
but he's restless—
he has an idea,
and slowly it unfolds
from under his beating wings
as long as he stays awake.
But his big, round music, after all,
is too breathy to last.
So, it's over.
In the pine-crown
he makes his nest,
he's done all he can.
I don't know the name of this bird,
I only imagine his glittering beak
tucked in a white wing
while the clouds—
which he has summoned
from the north—
which he has taught
to be mild, and silent—
thicken, and begin to fall
into the world below
like stars, or the feathers
of some unimaginable bird
that loves us,
that is asleep now, and silent—
that has turned itself
into snow.
Taking the Outdoors In
By bringing in something in from the outside world, we are creating reminders of where we are. As a result of big-box home stores going global and all the home decorating catalogs that infiltrate our front doors, our home interiors can begin to reflect a homogeneous look and feel. We could be inside and really be anywhere. Our regional landscapes give us bold reminders of where we live and inform a sense of our identity and spirit. This connection to place is critical in a global, technological driven era. Simple objects from just outside your front door can distinguish your homescape and provide a native anchor to your home.
Its a sick-day today at our house. And a rainy one to boot. Fevers and coughs, snuggles and sighs, and relentless rains are keeping this family inside. For a group who typically goes outside no matter what (we are firm believers in the "there is no such thing as bad weather, only being poorly dressed" theory), these days are hard. Furthermore, the Celtic Christian that I am, I get at my sacred space when I'm out of doors, whether it be in my garden, in our neighborhood greenspace, or trekking a bit beyond to the beaches and burrows of Seattle. Considering this dynamic, I knew I needed to intentionally employ some resources to sooth and ground our souls, in spite of the sickness.
I'm a tactile person, hence the great benefit I personally receive from our forest restoration work, digging deep into my garden and even my seasonal knitting. The feel of a tree, a stone or yarn passing through my fingers quiets my Self and wills my soul to show up and be present to my daily realities in ways that invites me to see the Divine all around me. Synthetics and plastics just don't cut it; they lack the heft and tactile reality that natural elements embody. For example, a plastic "toy" rock simply cannot achieve the appropriate weight and texture of a true stone. Nor do I have the same soul-response to a simulated stick or floral spray.
I need to engage the natural world in real and tangible ways daily; it is how I connect with God, myself and the greater community of things all about me.
It is common-culture in our house to bring the outside in in whatever appropriate and inspiring ways that we can. So while, yes, we have Playmobile Knights fighting battles throughout the house, we also have baskets of chestnuts collected last autumn for counting games and cannonballs, sliced wood blocks, scores of sticks, and easily accessible balls of woolen yarn for spontaneous story string making or finger knitting. Absolutely, the outside comes in for fun and play. But we also create intentional spaces and places that with a mere glance reminds us of the goodness of creation and the One behind it all.
One such example of this planned kind of place is our Nature Table. Our Nature Table is a dynamic display that morphs daily depending on who brings back what from a walk, from school, or from the woods. It tells the stories of our days. This dedicated plate contains memories of adventures, tokens of loved ones and connections to sacred places. I'm delighted when, with fluttering finger strokes, my children recall special memories of our family's time on the beach that are imbued in a shell. Or when they want to be the ones to light the daily candle, for as this place is like our family altar, they understand that by bringing light here, they are inviting divine illumination on our lives . For it is here that we bring natural items to represent prayers and hopes, and reminders of beauty and blessings.
We also have bowlfuls of green stones from Iona, Scotland around the house on tables, next to couches, on bookshelves. They are kind of like rabbits here, I guess. These favorite rocks have been rolled, tossed, counted, used for doll's food, blasted at by Lego ships, the whole gamut of play. But they are also fingered when we are having hard conversations, or laying sick on the sofa, or reading books. To some degree, they have become like prayer beads for our family, as fingering them seems to help keep in prayerful mindfulness the stories and events of our lives. Every member of our family has a favorite stone and we also make a practice of giving away Iona stones to friends who are having birthdays or need something especially special and hopeful.
But, today. Today, a wearied mom-of-two-sick-kids, I needed something. I needed to figure out how to get my "gift of grace." An important aspect of Celtic Christianity is the refusal to separate the gift of nature from the gift of grace, for both are seen as of and from God. Celtic scholar, and former warden of the Iona Abbey, John Philip Newell, unpacks this theological perspective further by offering, "The mysteries of creation and redemption are one. They are not in opposition to each other. Holding them together allows for a celebration of the essential goodness of life as a gift from God...." (The Book of Creation, p13). We were not going to be putting on the rain gear to discover God's goodness today outside...I had to find some fresh displays inside to buttress my rain-soaked-fever-weary spirit.
While rifling through some of the children's books, I found some forgotten-about pressed gingko leaves. These lovely fan-like, yellow leaves offered themselves up to become a garland for the piano in our front room. By gently tying regular knots around each stem, and guesstimating equal spacing, we created a simple and natural bunting that is not only unique and attractive, but also a reminder of this neighborhood we call home, for ginko trees line the avenue to which our small road connects.
By bringing in something in from the outside world, we are creating reminders of where we are. As a result of big-box home stores going global and all the home decorating catalogs that infiltrate our front doors, our home interiors can begin to reflect a homogeneous look and feel. We could be inside and really be anywhere. Our regional landscapes give us bold reminders of where we live and inform a sense of our identity and spirit. This connection to place is critical in a global, technological driven era. Simple objects from just outside your front door can distinguish your homescape and provide a native anchor to your home.
Our children recently learned how to make the Ojo de Dios (Eye of God) in Sunday School. This weaving craft is surprisingly simple and meditative. The repetitious pattern of bringing the yarn over and under the sticks is calming and centering. Today, of course, no popsicle sticks could be found anywhere in our house, so I went out to our covered front porch where I keep a decorative stash of cut branches from my parents' Red twig dogwoods out at their place in Snohomish. I cut larger than normal segments, and my son nestled into the arm of the couch to ensue a time of creating with sticks and wool yarn. Over, under, turn. Over, under, turn. Over, under, turn. His cough actually slowed down. He relaxed into the rhythm of co-creating with elements from the natural world. He commented on how different it was to do this project with real twigs compared to prefabricated popsicle sticks. It required more focus and dexterity. But the end result is beautiful and is already hanging over the interior of our front door, a visual reminder of God’s watchful presence in our lives.
My sense is that most of us live with items from special landscapes throughout our homes. While outside, we are naturally drawn to look and touch. While our feet carry and tarry us, we scan and search for a treasure to remind us of this time of feeling connected to the Source of it All. Reflect upon occasions when you have walked along beaches and looked for drift wood or shells, or hiked through the mountains and come across interesting rocks or sticks. These experiences tend to be imbued with a sense of calm and wonder. Sure, you can buy up tons of cast resin shells, coral and such from West Elm and Pottery Barn, and they will look wonderful on your shelves. But there is something priceless about the seek and find of a natural object that comes into our home to serve as a reminder of an interconnectedness to the Creator and the created world all around us.
Indeed, I found what I needed today. My gift of grace came by way of reminders and representations of the blessings that have come by way of surrounding landscapes, and being held and known by my children's hands.
Please share how you intentionally create spaces in your home to collect and display found, natural items. Is this a practice you regularly engage? How do these objects/spaces make you feel?
