Sacred Land, Sacred Self

Experiences and Lessons from manifesting and stewarding Sacred Sites

By Rev Lynx

It's that time of year again when the Cervidae start prepping for waking up the Sacred Sites and seeing what our goals and plans are for the year, and what a year ahead we have! Weather pending, our plan is to wake up the sites ( Labyrinth of the Ways & The Wandering Ways) on Saturday March 21st. With this taking place in the coming weeks I wanted to take a few moments and share some of the lessons, experiences and trials that went into their manifestation. 

It all started with a feeling during Between the Worlds 2014 when towards the end of the week Jeremiah and I were wondering through the land reminiscing on the weeks experiences. We both enjoyed walking the candlelight Labyrinth post komos, but also felt that Wisteria called out for a permanent one for all to wander through the years. This spark started the longest phase of her manifestation: Communicating with Wisteria and finding any possible way to make this manifest.  It involved having to move to Columbus, joining Green Faerie Grove and creating a relationship with the Wisterians. Finally during May of 2016 we “broke ground”....kind of, moreso the ground broke us (and our rental tiller) and thus our 1st lesson of the Labyrinth was given: Be Patient, have a lot of back up plans. 

Fun Fact:  Wisteria is a reclaimed strip mine and just below an inch or 2 of topsoil is about 3 feet of solid, gorgeous & hard as Hel red clay and there was now way our little tiller and shovels were going to clear about 3,848 Sq ft that we needed. 

Another Fun Fact: The “bush” we used as our center point, and thus our future sacred fire pit, was not a bush. It was a pear tree that was planted many moons ago that dwarfed itself to survive in the clay. And the field had at least 4 other pear or apple trees that were planted for the Ancestors. So we had a few predicaments on our hands. 


We had to stop. Step back and rethink our whole process. We couldn’t intentionally pull these tree’s up. They may be wild when we found them, they may not bear fruit, but they had intent and purpose. We had to wait. We talked with a few tree specialists, talked with the Wisterians about options and hired some Amish folks with their steeds and disk tillers to do the job our machines could not. We carefully marked the Ancestors Trees and came back a month later and wow, what a difference. The Circle was laid and we had our new plans. The following 6 months was more about managing our energy and pushing ourselves til we just about broke. We slept under the stars and listened to the frogs call til the sun came up and sometimes sat in silence communing and connecting with the land figuring out what the next few steps were. 

Then tragedy struck on June 12, 2016, Rev Cooke and I woke up at the site to the tragic news about the Orlando shootings at Pulse Nightclub. We grabbed what supplies we had on hand and held vigil and read their names out loud at the site of the Queer Spirit Mound.  We sat in silence, isolated in the woods and thought of the kindred we just lost and the fires we would burn in their honor. We worked in silence that day, just reflecting on the work. The losses. The blood and tears. There were screams. There were tears. There was honor and humbleness. And we worked, but we worked for them. 


We continued forward. Tons of stone. Tons of sand. Tons of sweat. Sometimes we laughed and sang. Sometimes we sat and just surrounded ourselves in the land and the work. The flow of effort and work spanning just 6 months was magical to say the least. To show up after a festival left to see a mountain of rocks with words of love and thanks written upon them. Old friends from NY leaving us love and blessings in the form of rocks from the Adirondack Mountains. Rocks we got blessed with from around the country and the world. All them coming to this pile of rocks that would soon be a Sermon of the Self written in stone and bones. A path for folks to wander in hopes of losing a piece of them Self or sometimes looking for a new Way. A place where all Ways can come and a place where all Ways can go. And thus Her name was given to us, we didn’t choose it.  It was a gif to us from Her and to all the Selfs we’d never meet. For 6 months we became an extension of Wisteria, working so closely with Her that her red clay is still embedded in some clothes and my Bone pendant. Finding and embracing that connection as we worked was some of the deepest work I have done. She pushed us. She challenged our sight and our perspective. She tested our fortitude and dedication to manifest the Ways for this was something that goes beyond the self. It was something beyond a mundane scope and all we knew is that we Felt it. 

I am looking forward to waking the Ways this Spring and to all the new lessons that will come along the Way. Its amazing what you can learn if you just listen to the beat, just trust in the Ways and let it be.