A Divining Rod Heart on Easter Sunday — The Contemplative Space

The day before, Easter Sunday, I spent time with paper, pens and yarn creating a long prayer flag that I stretched across my back yard. On Easter morning, I found myself awake before anyone else in my household. I stepped out onto my deck, descended the stairs and sat on an old wicker rocking chair settled on the stones around my fire pit with a mug of coffee warming my hands. As I gently rocked, I watched the prayer flags flutter in the soft breeze. It felt as if each prayer was lifting skyward. I spontaneously began to chant and sing, making up the tunes and reciting the prayers I’d written the day before.

It was an Earthy moment. It was holy.

I looked up and Sister Moon was till visible through the trees. The song birds were already singing their melodies. I was only accompanying them. I don’t know how long I rocked and chanted, but the time was sacred.

I’ve long ago given up church. My husband still attends, but I cannot. Perhaps I will again one day. I am drawn to Quakerism. When he woke up later and went to watch the Easter service online, I told him about my morning.

“You do things your way”, he commented and I pondered his words.

As a child, I remember learning about divining rods: a Y shaped instrument made out of wood or metal used to find underground water. Sometimes it is called dowsing, water finding or water witching. It is a pseudoscience still used today. It’s one of those unexplainable phenomena, like a sixth sense or intuition or that experience of deja vu.

It’s a Mystery.

“Water is Life!” the Lakota people cry out as they try to protect themselves and their land. Their words remind us of our connection with Earth. Our bodies are made of 98% water and just as the gravitational pull of the moon impacts our ocean tides, so does the cosmic cycle of planets and moon phases impact our bodies. Labor nurses and midwives have long confirmed that more babies are born during full moons. We are told to drink lots of water daily to stay healthy, especially during this pandemic.

In scripture, Jesus Christ compared himself to Living Water.

As I pondered what my husband had said, I realized that “you do things YOUR way”, is not a willful action that I take to be in defiance of the church or others. Rather, it is an organic movement of worship and connection with the Divine that nourishes me. Nature has always nourished me.

In the 4th century, Plato’s philosophy that matter and spirit are separate was Christianized by Augustine. They also claimed spirit was higher than matter. This lie has sadly been buried deep in our bones ever since and creates the disconnect we see in our world today. In truth matter matters, because it is not separate from spirit.

It’s not a perfect analogy, but my heart is a divining rod. I long to connect with the Divine even from a young age. This desire is deep within every human being, even those who do not claim to “believe in” spirituality or Mystery.

We long:

to know Love

to be Loved

to Connect

to Belong

to Be Known.

We all carry this desire in our DNA and we go about seeking it in multiple ways throughout our lives. At first, we may think we’ll find it in relationships, money, fame, material things or power. We even seek it in religion. Eventually, we discover the shallowness of these pursuits. Hopefully, we open our divining rod hearts and pursue something deeper, Life Giving Water.

I am a divining rod and so are you, because we constantly search for this deep longing, though we may not even be conscious of our seeking. Over these last six years, I’ve worked hard at healing my trauma and becoming whole. This works includes learning to trust mySelf. This is a bodily knowing a trusting of my matter-self. And It comes from a place of groundedness firmly planted in Trust of the Divine in mySelf.

God is in Me. I am in God. God surrounds Me. Matter and spirit are one.

For most of my life, I felt a need to conform to my tribe. This meant dressing, talking, acting and thinking like them. Somehow I thought this meant I was following God. For me, after my son’s cancer, I found that there was no depth there. It all fell flat, because it was not coming from mySelf. It was not coming from that deep place of connection. Matter and Spirit.

Now I am trying to allow mySelf to follow what the Divine calls me to in each moment. I am intuiting in my body, what connects me and nourishes me as my divining rod heart seeks out Living Water.

This takes attunement: Time spent in Centering Prayer and meditation, walks in nature, pausing and allowing mySelf to feel. Pause again. Ground. I grieve. I jump for joy. I go through the hard things, not around them. I see with Christ Conscious eyes and trust my body knowing.

Spirit and matter are One. I am learning to trust my intuition to find what nourishes my Soul. The earthy, sacred groundedness of chanting with prayer flags on Easter Sunday is only the beginning.