Doctrine of
Recovery
Doctrine of Recovery images by artist, spiritual scribe, and lead collaborator Sila (Katie) Sawicki.
Celebrating through Sacred Geometry - offering an Earth Altar
The following invitations and suggested steps appear on page 42 of the Doctrine of Recovery booklet.
Start by just wandering and wondering. Look up, look down. Notice shapes and colors, be in awe of what you see around you.
❋ Wandering & Wondering
You may be drawn to pick things off the ground. If you wish to receive leaves or flowers from a living plant, ask permission first. Allow this experience to be a prayerful process of gathering.
❋ Gathering What Calls You
Take a few breaths. You may choose to say to yourself: I invite in the power of sacred geometry, and the power of the circle and spiral. For a few more deep breaths, hold an image of a circle or spiral in your mind and heart. (See images below for inspiration)
❋ Attuning & Inviting
Look at your prayer site. Feel out where you’d like to lay your Earth Altar as protection and honoring of your compost-and-seeding site. An important suggestion: place your altar pieces around the site, not directly on the composting and seeding areas.
❋ Choosing a Place
❋ Placing the Center & Building Around It
If your design has something in its center, begin there, and then go around it in concentric circles, laying down items and pieces in whatever patterns arise. This could be in the shape of a mandala right by your site of prayer, or rings placed lovingly around it. And this can be as simple as placing one sweet flower or leaf on the Earth as your Earth Altar.
Take a breath and slowly step back from your Earth Altar creation, looking at it as a whole, and interconnected with the soil and other things near it. Ask: Am I done? (or are we done if moving with multiple people / spirits?) Does something need to be added? Or taken away?
❋ Stepping Back
Bow to this embodiment of beauty, and offer gratitude to the power of the circle and spiral, both speaking to the fundamental creative life forces found in the cosmos and the smallest units of life.
❋ Bowing to Your Creation
If it feels right, you can draw or take a picture of your prayer site and the Earth Altar at this point in the ritual, to continue the prayer via the visual and amplify a more intentional cross-land practice. This can be uploaded at our private Doctrine of Recovery webpage.
You can also take a picture / draw the site a few weeks later when the compostable seed paper has dissolved a bit more and seedlings may be emerging. We welcome it all, and are moved to continue to pray through time and across lands through your visual stories of your prayers-in-form.
When you upload a picture, you will be invited to share the lands you are moving in partnership with for this ritual.
❋ Sharing
Earth Altars below by Laura Loescher
