To pray with the river we become the river. It's a vibrational thing, like humming, like joining a song that's been singing itself forever
Module 4 - Sacred Ache: A Becoming Real Workshop
Something sacred is hidden in this world. Somehow, we recognize it when we encounter its whispers - in a story book or the words of a stranger who will become a mentor. Somehow, we sense it: this is a door with a secret key. Somehow, something calls us forward.
I am opening this module to all readers. All are welcome in the discussion, which takes place in the comments of this page.
In that spirit, here is
Module Four of the Sacred Ache Workshop:
Praying with the River
I have to admit that writing this module challenged me. I got stuck. Not because I had nothing to say. I had, perhaps, too much to share. I wrote and I wrote - for four days (and counting). And every time I thought the module was finished, something was missing.
I thought that I was writing about myth, about sacred texts, about the Garden of Eden, but something wasn’t landing. I felt restless. Stuck. And I found myself reaching for more stories, more examples. Stories from other cultures. Examples from my own life. The module was getting WAY too long. Too thought-heavy. Too dense.
It didn’t dawn on me that this feeling - of frustration and being blocked - is exactly what this Sacred Ache workshop is about until I set the work aside and took a drive to the thrift store. Which is where, sitting in a bin of dusty children’s books, I saw a familiar book cover: The Secret Garden.
The Secret Garden was my FAVORITE book. As a child, I read it over and over, enchanted by its world - drawn into its tender story. Yet I’ve never even read it to my own children. Somehow, I’d completely forgotten it.
Until, the moment I saw it, sitting in a bin at the thrift store, reaching for me.
This is what recognition feels like. Something that was stuck starts moving again.
For me, the key to this lock was Enchantment.
The Key to the Garden
In The Secret Garden, a lonely girl named Mary Lennox arrives at a huge empty house, full of locked doors. She is unloved and unwell, a child who has never known real belonging. Then, one day, she hears whispers of a hidden garden.
She goes searching. She finds the wall but … another locked door. She goes searching. She finds a key. Curious. A little nervous but clearly - enchanted - Mary opens the door and steps through. The walls open around her. She is enclosed in a secret world - a world that will completely change her life.
Clearly, this story is not only about a garden. It is a story about hidden gifts that heal and make us whole. A story about change and friendship and the slow magic of care.
Most of all, The Secret Garden taught me what happens when we engage with the living world and, by our participation with life, we are called back to life.
I find it extraordinary the way that the teachings of this book have run under my own work like a pulse. I am moved by this in a deep and visceral way. I am bemused and amazed that all of this time, though the book was forgotten, its world was so much a part of me and the way that I view and experience the world.
Something sacred is hidden in this world. Somehow, we recognize it when we encounter its whispers - in a story book or the words of a stranger who will become a mentor. Somehow, we sense it: this is a door with a secret key.
Somehow, something calls us foward.
Just as the magic of The Secret Garden has infused my life, there is another story we’ve been working with these past few weeks — a story that is literally built into the foundations of our human world: The Story of Eden
It’s the story of an exile. The story of a banishment from connection with Divine love. A story, we’ve been told, for generations, that excludes us from blessing.
We were once whole, once in perfect harmony. But we lost it.
We are fallen, unworthy. Cleaved from connection with Divine blessing.
And all because a woman and a man took a bite of an apple - and could suddenly see.
But what if it was never about exile?
Never about banishment nor sin.
What if we were never cast out
but meant to step forward -
awakened inside of one garden,
ready to be born into another?
What if Adam and Eve is a story about becoming?
The Garden of Resonance
The River That Prays
In this retelling of the Eden story, found in Saltair na Rann, a 10th-century Irish poetic text, I found another vision. In this telling, Adam and Eve, cast out of the garden, walk into a river - and the river receives them.
Fasting and penitent, river water up to their chins, they stand there, aching for reconnection with the Divine- and they pray.
The God they once walked with is lost. They don’t know how to reach him when they are so far away. Will a voice call from the sky? Will he send an angel? A dove?
They pray. They wait. They listen.
No answer comes until…
The rivers stop flowing. The fish stop swimming. The birds stop singing.
The response comes from everywhere. And everything.
They stop praying and look up.
They stop looking for one kind of answer
and receive the answer that has already come,
the river praying with them.
The water enfolding and holding them.
Their eyes open again.
A second awakening.
Suddenly, they can see it -
Adam and Eve realize: Things have changed, but I am not alone.
The Divine presence is all around them. Not just in the figure of a parent God, but in everything. And this is how, as the river joins them in prayer, Adam and Eve join the world by joining the song of life that is also God, and already underway.
What I mean is, God created THIS world, too.
Gardens. Rivers. Forests. Fields. The world is alive and green. The world is moving and flowing. As we move through its spaces, aliveness is moving through us.
The song of OM, the Primordial Sound
In Hindu and yogic philosophy, OM (AUM) is the vibration from which the universe emerged—a sound that is still resonating, the fundamental pulse of life itself. What I mean is, OM is the sound of God moving through everything, everywhere. OM is the sound of life being alive, of love loving. It’s the Divine frequency, a note endlessly held. In this sense, then, prayer is not about beseeching a distant God to deliver us. Prayer is entering the river all the way up to our chin. Prayer is appreciating what is unfolding around us. Prayer is a way of blessing. A way of vibrating with existence itself.
To pray with the river, we join the river.
To talk with God, we just talk. Trusting that our prayer will be carried by the river and blessing whatever response comes.
It is a vibrational thing, a resonance—like humming along with a song. In that sense, we are always praying - and always becoming.
There is a way of knowing that we cannot learn in a classroom. In our modern world. It finds us in the stories we return to again and again—stories that work on us in ways we don’t fully understand.
Learning to fly
I’m reminded of the time, when my children were small, when we were invited to the lake house of a friend. On our very first day there, seven-year-old Max fell ill with a high fever and sleepy sickness.
For four days, Max and I stayed behind while the others went swimming. Four days when, every single day, Max asked to watch the same Disney movie, The Sword in the Stone.
I could see why he loved it - I did, too! It was magical. An animated film, based on the book by T.H. White, in which a young King Arthur (Wart) is tutored by the wizened old wizard, Merlin, in the shamanic arts: specifically shapeshifting.
And so, every day, as Max watched young Arthur shapeshift into a bird, a fish—learning to fly, to swim, I sat beside him, wondering how this story would influence the way he saw the world. Though the film never articulated the specific method or tradition this practice came from, I knew we were witnessing ancient mystical practices that value direct experience over mere instruction.
Looking back, almost thirty years later, I find myself remembering. Max wasa child of great empathy. He talked with animals and propped up the plants that had fallen over at the garden center, whispering: “There you go. You’re okay now.” I wonder about how that story found my son? How it initiated him. How it prepared him for the work he does now, as a physical therapist who works with the elderly. Who listens to their stories and helps ease their pain.
What I am pointing to here is: This healing impulse, this abillity to empathize and join with the experience of others was always a part of my son.
How did this archetypal tale dovetail with who he already was and aid in his becoming.
PAUSE FOR A MOMENT -
to consider your own journey. What books, films or sacred texts transmitted their archteypal patterns (and wisdom) to you? How have those teachings filtered into your life? Watch for the tracings in your work, your worldview, your relationships with self and others.
Like the other stories discussed today, The Sword in the Stone is built on an archetypal tale. A young prince, destined to be king learns to shapeshift. Gifts of learning not found in regular school. How many of the stories of our early years serve as initiations, quietly working on us in ways we never realize?
Meditation
Exiting the Garden.
Last week, we entered the garden, receiving its gifts. This week, we practice exiting the garden - not as exile but as a choice, to enter and expand its walls. To make the garden wide enough to contain all that we are, all that we are becoming.
The River of Release and Renewal
In this meditation, we revisit and then, exit the garden of childhood, float in a slow moving river and release all that we no longer need to carry. As these burdens fall away, we step from the river, refreshed and reborn.
After the meditation
Journal Prompts: Walking into the New World
What object or symbol did you slip into your pocket? Why did this symbol appear to you? How might it connect to your life today?
How did you feel as you floated? What did you release to the bottom of the river?
Describe the new clothes. How did it feel to wear them?
Remember:
We have never truly left the garden. The Sacred Ache is the door—our heart’s longing to return. This longing is a soul call, a heart reaching for re-enchantment, for reconnection with what we know is real. What we can sense there, shimmering, just beyond our grasp.
When the soul calls, when the heart calls, the response always comes. The key is in noticing - the river that pauses, the forgotten book in a thrift store pile.
The key is acknowledging the enchantment as an invitation.
To pray with the river.
To pick up the book.
To step through the door.
A lovely fresh ride in the clear, soft river.
I got a feeling I knew the water. Yesterday my husband and I spoke about where we will to return when (if) we get really old. My mother in law turns 94 and she is most of the time in the little cottage where she spent most of her childhood. My family moved a lot during my childhood and I guess I will return to my grandfathers house by the lake, the only constant place I knew.
Lately I have boiled down what was the most important parts of my visits at my grandparents place, and the lake, the water in the lake, is the strongest feeling. The river in the meditation reminded me of that. The water as a kind of ...a beeing really! That spoke to me, held me, was my friend.
A chestnut slipped in my pocket. Chestnuts carries memories from my grandparents place, but also from the churchyard where my other grandparents are buried. Once a chestnut slipped in my pocket from there, and I found when I searched for matches to light a candle where my father is buried 300 kilometers away. As a greeting from his parents.
I released a lot of demands from my family in the water, it felt really nice. But I like the feeling of beeing carried by the safe water i know since forever, and with the chestnut as a seed from my heritage to plant in the new world.
I love my new clothes. A pink theme, soft dress and leggings. Soft leather shoes and a long light green wool coat with a generous hood.
Thank you Amy, for putting all the small details under the magnifying glass. ❤️