I’ll send you a questionnaire. After I have your answers I’ll commune and write out your letter. I type up the original and then email that and images of the original to you. Then I can burn or mail you the original.

That may sound weird or vague to some people. The longer I spend time in isolation from society the deeper within I have traveled. I share my space with my younger sister and husband so I am lucky enough have my core community with me. My path of facing the world alone has come to an end. Even in the new world that in manifesting I can see my family and community growing. The hope that fills me is also unprecedented. The joy I have is contagious (too soon?)

I’ve also made my way through most of the TV I was watching before the world changed. As I look for new entertainment I find the narratives of families and parenting seem to pull me more than previously. My work has focused so deeply on healing my inner child that feeling the call of my inner mother is strange. As the spring comes I can her rising like Persephone from her home with Hades to show that she is no longer Kore, the maiden, but instead she is with child, she brings new life from the realm of death. Like many others I have been praying and working so that the earth will heal. I see this new age and it fill me with such faith. I believe in my dream of a family, a new community, a new home.

So what’s with that title, right? Well. I hate lawns. Historically they come from the tumultuous time of French aristocracy and revolutions. Socially they have always been a means for showing expendable wealth. When I think of the home, family and community I want I do see identical houses with lawns approved by Karen from the Home Owners Association. I see wild. I see biodiversity. I see living with the land not on the land.

But if my reality is a mirror of my inner universe then why do I have a lawn in my brain? I mean why am I expecting my brain, heart, soul or body to live in each other and not with each other? Just as the earth is not meant to be just one thing so too I can allow my interior world, my connection to source, my expression to be as diverse as any healthy yard or field or forest. As a kid all we had was a small, wire fenced yard against a cement alleyway. Against one side was a swing set that I considered my haven. If I was out on the swing set then my Mom didn’t bother me. We moved to a larger house with a yard next to the local highschool when I was ten. It was amazing. I could suddenly, safely wander up to 30 or 45 minutes of a walking from home. There were parking lots to bike in. There was forest around the back side of the campus. There were tennis courts and a track/football field. When I went to high school in Rhode Island we spent every Saturday and Sunday at the various state parks or beaches in the state.

It was out in the “wild” that I found the space and ability to hear my own voice. I could hide from the voices that told me I had to change, cut myself down, be like everyone else or I would hurt other people. The narrative was that I hurt people. The woods, wilds, fields and yards I took solace in over the years taught me that healthy growth shows when many things can grow in unison. To the individual this looks like not needing to be the master of any one craft or the ability to heal in the midst of chaos. As a community it means each person needs to be themselves in order for true peace and harmony to exist. As spring come to this age of isolation maybe don’t worry so much what your lawn looks like and strive to grow a more natural space as a reminder to let your heart and soul grow with your mind and body. Let go of the need for old standards and devout your energy to listening to your intuition and hope for a healthier tomorrow.

Step one. Pray.

All the time. From a young age. Allow God to speak in a way that makes you feel known. Hear in your heart the call to leave everything behind so you can change the world. Ask to be chosen. Seek advice from spiritual leaders on how to know if you’re called. Find a way to follow that inner voice to the bitter end.

Step Two. Discern.

So when the Christ supposedly returned to the hand of the Father the Church it became obvious the second coming wasn’t coming any time soon so the Church broke into pieces as the message of redemption spread. Christianity would come to dominate the West and from that would rise up religious groups to solve the social problems they believe God wanted them to fix. They couldn’t be idle. But when the divine no longer sends burning bushes or angels of light how do you know what God wants YOU to do? Discernment.

Belief in the Christ and his mission demands actions. But when the divine no longer sends burning bushes or angels of light how do you to know what God wants YOU to do? Discernment.

Learn to grasp and comprehend the obscure. See a rise in emotions during church as a sign of Gods presence. Consider the imaginations of what life would be like as a nun in medieval times as a call to consecration today and now. Dismiss your lack of meaningful relationships as proof you’re meant for something, not someone, extra special. Ask experts to help dismantle the deepest, most private part of your psyche to get external confirmation that you’re called.

Step Three. Follow.

You think I’m tricking you at this point. I’m not. For I believe that to be mad there has to be a relationship. Therefore I propose that to truly feel anger at God, to hate God, you have to have followed the path or the rules or whatever.

Which I did for 9 years from 13 to 22 in a religious group that’s since morphed and changed almost as much as I have. Knowing that there was a Mater Ecclesiae College on Austen Ave in Greenville Road Island seems like an secret for a cult. The building is still in use. I want to go stand in those halls and imagine myself back to the feeling of “being in formation” with my day spent going from chapel to dining hall to classroom to chapel to bed to wake to do it all again.

Step Four. Change.

It’s the only constant.

Its the one thing the Church hates.

Church can destroy you using everything you ever loved as the means and motivation. Only it’s just people trying to control their worlds by manipulating mine.

Step five. Resurrection.

That’s where it ends. People deciding that who I was, how I loved was too out of their control. So my religion died. My resurrection was fueled by anger at Gods as I knew them. It’s an anger that burns. It’s an anger that’s rooted. It’s an anger like a hurricane. It destroys all that came before except the knowledge that I was made from and for love.

Amelia Martin the Heretic Fairy