Sacred Groves

Heavens: Above All Things, Part 4

Join us this Thursday, May 8th at 7:00pm MT for a Zoom conversation with Kathryn Knight Sonntag and Zach Davis. RSVP below to get the Zoom link.

Theologies formed by argumentation and creed largely dominate the religious world and minimize the reality of other ways of arriving at knowledge, of understanding and creating meaning. They often discount the necessary place of the ineffable in knowledge creation, the power of the unknown and unknowable. The spaces in between. The Mother honors women as theologians claiming knowledge from their own bodies, knowledge that is not always translatable and that may actually become degraded when relegated to language for consumption in the world. New considerations in theological discourse surrounding the feminine are paramount to our collective survival and salvation, not to mention the very vitality of our religious discourse.

The harmonizing of feminine and masculine principles inside our souls leads to an internal Zion-scape, one that begs reconsideration of the supremacy of the rational over the emotional, the linear over the cyclical, and the quantifiable over the experiential. It asks that we recognize how privileging the masculine above the feminine bears bad fruit, and considers a more inclusionary approach.

Greater sovereignty in our spiritual journeys teaches that there is not just one Sacred Grove but that there are groves everywhere, and you and I can and must enter as part of the rolling out of light and truth, the expansion of the ongoing Restoration. The Mother is also our guide into the heart of our groves. She is here to teach us obscured portions of the ascension path, to round out our theology of argumentation and creed with the theology of the body, a theology of the ineffable, the mysterious, the symbolic, the cellular song, the intuitive knowing so beautifully expressed in Her Son, Jesus the Christ. She confirms His teachings that there is no domination in God.

She is the veil parted, the signs given, our spiritual eyes open, our tongues loosed with the gift of prophecy. “She is a tree of life to those who take hold of her; those who hold her fast will be blessed” (Prov. 3:18, NIV). I await the return of Lady Wisdom and see many engaged in preparing a way for Her to usher in an order and peace that weaves together all knowledge and truth in one great Restoration.

I imagine Mother God, the Mother Tree returned from exile—our inner landscapes unburdened by the blindness of mortality, our attachment to power surrendered, and Earth finally at rest. I envision a world anointed by Her dew—Her love—and hope quickens my heart.

The Cube of Fire

And maybe we have to consider 
that if we find the fluttering heat 
of maternal wings missing,
the cube of fire, the heart of creation now 
a place of darkness, where

love outside time and every dancing figure 
of Ezekiel’s Living Ones
have passed,

that She, once in the midst of everything, 
like the subtlest, sweetest fragrance of home, 
must be restored. And who

are these temple priests
slated to return—the shadow of exile 
dusting their trailing robes,
palm leaves in hand—if not you,
 if not me?

—Kathryn Knight Sonntag, “The Cube of Fire,” in The Tree at the Center

*The Cube of Fire, a twenty-cubit cube lined with gold, was the Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem temple and the residence of the Mother of the Lord (1 Kings 6:20). It represented the origin and heart of creation.

Discussion Question:

How does The Mother Tree suggest we recover the Sacred (archetypal) Feminine in Restoration theology? Why is this work important?

Bonus: What part of the book resonated with you most? What insight will you carry with you?

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Kathryn Knight Sonntag is the Poetry Editor for Wayfare and the author of The Mother Tree: Discovering the Love and Wisdom of Our Divine Mother and The Tree at the Center.

Art by Hilma af Klint.