A seasonal practice

to cultivate the essential energies of the summer sun:

growth, movement, sensuality, creativity, delight.

 

You are invited to join fellow seekers in Carolyn Cushing’s virtual Soul Path Sanctuary for a contemplative retreat-in-everyday life to gather the gifts of the season and attune to your unique soul path from May 27th through June 30th.

The elements of Walking the Ways of the Summer Light are:

• Prompts to connect with the elements of earth, air, water, and fire as well as the questions each element invites you to explore.
• Guidance for undertaking a pilgrimage to answer the questions that arises from the fullness of your soul’s longing.
• Inspiration from the images of Tarot, oracles, and nature to attune you to the signs and symbols that surround us in everyday life.
• Communion with both the light and the dark through following the sun at its zenith and attending to the moon’s embrace of the dark.
• An overall flow that moves you meaningfully through a process of renewal.

The ritual is delivered to you in multiple formats so you can participate in the way that works best for you and your unique rhythm, including one or all options:

• An overview booklet delivered to you as soon as sign up so you can see the flow of the whole season.
• A journey guide / diary so you can record your journey as you go along and track patterns.
• Daily e-mails to bring a burst of inspiration into each day and invite you into weekly Wisdom Wanders and a culminating pilgrimage experience.
• Social media spaces for sharing and viewing of images created during the elemental explorations by other participants walking the ways with you.
• Weekly tele/audio-circles on Wednesday nights at 8:30pm ET and recorded for later viewing.

Everything is in movement in the summer! You, too, are invited to move as we flow from spring into summer. The Wisdom Wander and Pilgrimage practices of Walking the Ways of the Summer Light, could help you to:

• heal;
• tend your soul;
• connect with the Divine;
• find your way to be of service;
• align with your greater purpose;
• open you to a process or period of initiation;
• strengthen your love of, and devotion to, the land;
• anchor you in our unique strengths by challenging you in unusual ways; or
• walk in the footsteps of your ancestors and fellow followers of a tradition.

All for only $37.

Details on Walking the Ways of the Summer Light

The hinge of Walking the Ways is the Summer Solstice, the time of longest light and height of the sun’s shinning. 

In the four weeks before the Solstice, we will wander toward this time of greatest light, taking weekly walks guided by elemental themes of first earth, then air, water, and, finally fire. These Wisdom Wanders will loosen the hold of our usual modes and roles over us. As we travel in a relaxed manner, we will be invited to listen, see, and feel in news ways.  To flow with this idea of loosening, we seek not answers but questions that can ignite desire, serve growth, inspire transformation. 

The days around the Solstice will be for celebration, play, and maybe some fireworks to bring light even into the night. We will also review all the questions that have surfaced during the Wisdom Wanders to find the one that most speaks to our deep soul needs or fires our imagination in special ways.

We will move out from the Solstice with this illuminating question at the center of our travel to and from a sacred place. We will undertake a pilgrimage. If you have weeks of time to go to a celebrated pilgrimage place, wonderful! But the power of intention can support you to create a pilgrimage experience in any amount of time that you have.

My Story

When my partner John died in a car crash in November 2012, my beliefs about death were a flimsy paper cup, immediately ripped apart. But the practices I’d developed through working with Tarot, nature, and poetry led me through creative mourning to find in grief a “secret medicine for those who hurt too hard to hope” (to gratefully borrow Rumi’s words).

I spent a few years regenerating through a devotion to the dark. Tending of the dark offered me personal healing and a connection to the Divine, my beloved dead, and the ancestors that makes me feel very supported and loved. This tending also became the gateway for emerging into the light’s energy of creative flow, action, and service.

In 2015 I spent the summer wisdom wandering, taking a pilgrimage to Acadia National Park in Maine, and finding a new and surprising connection with the joy of the sun! This luminous time filled me with new energy. I felt a connection to the solar world that didn’t diminish my lunar devotions. You can read more in my Wisdom Wander posts from 2015.

I offer this ritual for you to use and adapt so that you, too, can gather the gifts of the sun and find the just right balance of light and dark that you need for walking your unique soul path.

 

On Carolyn’s Work

Carolyn’s writing is exquisite and the ritual processes she offers inspire and support me in my own practice. For a year, I put a weekly reminder in my calendar to check her Soul Path posts that offered illuminating comments on Tarot’s meanings but even more importantly prompts for using the cards to move through my life. The ideas, images and feeling sparked by the prompts and subsequent cards allow me to create a movement flow to embody the cards, gathering fully the power to move through the week ahead. The depth of reflection and embodiment I experience is made possible by Carolyn’s exquisite instruction!” ~Jennifer Lucero-Earle, Embodied Tarot Counseling | ArcanaDance | Nia

Carolyn has cultivated a beautiful and profound relationship with *The Oracle of Initiation’s* earthen wisdom. Through her own deep initiations into death and revitalization she has found the pathways to claiming the gifts hidden within our shadows. These rainbows in the dark are the paradox of reframing our struggles into the enchanted stepping stones revealing our authentic soul gifts. And having come out the other side of her own descent into the brilliant darkness using the *Oracle*, she is now a seasoned and joyful guide for others to liberate their own glorious self-authority. ~ Mellissae Lucia–creator of The Oracle of Initiation

How It Works

In early May, you will receive a PDF overview booklet so you can get an orientation to the general themes and activities of Walking the Ways of the Summer Light. If you are the type of person who likes to prepare, take a look at the booklet. If you’d rather go with the flow, don’t worry the daily e-mails will guide you through the process.

Around May 23rd, just before we start the e-retreat, you’ll receive your journey guide/ diary document customized to this year’s solar and lunar happenings in which you can record your adventures, questions, and insights.

On May 27th, four weeks of Wisdom Wanders begin with daily e-mails that prompt you to take small steps that can prepare you for a longer Wisdom Wander on the weekend. You may want to do these suggested actions/reflections daily or save the e-mails and review them right before taking a Wisdom Wander. Ideally, you’ll be able to set aside some dedicated time for each Wander, but you can also work a Wander into a walk from the bus to the office, a 15 minute lunch time escape, a rally for justice, or an after dinner stroll.

We will celebrate the June 21st Solstice during our Fire week.

The week after the Solstice the daily e-mails will support you in planning a pilgrimage experience (could be an actual trip you plan to take this summer, a dream journey, or advance planning for a future pilgrimage.