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Charlotte Hinderliter Ferris

@wildedgefaith

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Spiritual director and supervisor, contemplative retreat leader, writer, follower of Jesus. A scaredy-cat, but called to live beyond my fear.

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Last day of pilgrimage. Too tired to write a post, but here are a few pics from our last day as a pilgrim group. Thanks for following our journey! #thomasflahertytours #wildedgepilgrimage inismór by @wildedgefaith

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2 months ago

Pilgrimage looks good on all of us! by @wildedgefaith

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Pilgrimage Day 9

Our last desert day where our pilgrims make a solo prayer journey anywhere on the island. Some choose to revisit sites. Others venture to one of the many sacred sites on the east side of Inis Mór.

On desert days, we gather what has been given during previous prayer times while on pilgrimage and ask questions that take us deeper into our soul’s story.

Although the desert is a place of intimacy and healing, a place where we come alive, it is also a place of suffering, dying, loss and sometimes harshness.

The desert is a wild edge of faith where whatever comes to us, comes as messengers of grace meant to bless even when dressed in unseemly robes.

For me, the last two years brought a prolonged familiarity with aloneness, so my desert day continued the journey in the same direction.

Macrina Wiederkehr’s poem, Tourist or Pilgrim, wooed me back to my intention for this pilgrimage; to heal the tattered edges of my heart. She tells us,

There is a road
that runs straight through your heart.
Walk on it.

The irony was not lost on me.

I’ve walked maybe 1000 steps since my knee injury. Yet, this pilgrimage has been one where the road that runs through my wild heart has led me and our pilgrims.

The road in my wild heart makes meaning out of fallen trees and broken branches.
Holds space for those who suffer accusations, allegations and crucifixions.
Offers paths to begin to believe in something more than meaningless pain.
Invites those who hunger to be nourished, those who thirst to find refreshment.

It’s taken many pilgrimages, years of depression and heartbreak, silent days and lonely seasons to recognize the road that runs through my heart.

The years through the desert, not around it, opened the path that led me home to the person God created me to be.

Today, I saw the tattered edges of my heart woven together with “sea urchin quills”, transforming tatters into a beautiful fringe.

My heart is already healed! By the hand of the One who has led me into the desert again and again.

(In one version of the Selkie Song, The Old Woman of the World weaves cloth with a fringe of sea urchin quills.)

#wildedgepilgrimge #desertday #selkiestory by @wildedgefaith

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2 months ago

by @wildedgefaith

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Pilgrimage Day 8

Today our pilgrims hiked to Dún Dúchathair, the Black Fort. One of four large ring fort ruins on Inis Mór, located on the southern cliffs at Killeany. The stunning beauty of the view outweighs the challenge of the trek.

I knew before I left home this is another site our pilgrims would visit without me. Bummed, but grateful for my pilgrim-leader partner, Don, who knows the way of a pilgrim guide.

Our pilgrims walked the paved road until they came to a rocky dirt path that leads to the top of the cliffs. The first view of the wild Atlantic ocean satisfies, but the journey continues over karst landscape; limestone pavement called clints separated by fissures called grykes.

Archaeologists believe the bronze-age fort sat well inland when built, but after centuries of wild rain, wind and sea waters pushing against the land, Dún Dúchathair sits at the very edge of the cliff.

Less who think I’ve missed out on all the deliciousness of my pilgrim-leader self, I’ll share a pic of one of our pilgrim community times where I bring the content of our prayer guide to life. I know many of you have tasted the juiciness of living into the preparation for pilgrimage, or retreat, sermon, class and then offering the meal to those entrusted to you. Very grateful I have enough energy to present, albeit in a limited capacity. Also grateful for how flexible our pilgrims have been and how they offer me a generous hospitality.

We prayed with the Wild Edge of the Elements today, bringing 2 poems to support our journey. Christine Lore Weber’s, Mother Wisdom Speaks.

And a second I wrote for this site.

Yet, as I stand here before this carved out place,
stunned by the beauty of so much glory,
you remind me two things can be true at once.

Hollowed and hallowed.
Disappearance and spaciousness.
Severity and mercy.
Sorrow and joy.
Pain and healing.

My poem reflects the tenderness given to me over many years when I didn’t know two things could be true at once. Life, full of both/ands, eroded the either/or stance of my younger years.

It has truly been a wild edge of faith journey.

#wildedgefaithpilgrimage #DúnDúchathair #inismór by @wildedgefaith

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2 months ago

by @wildedgefaith

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Pilgrimage Day 6 and 7

I’m a day late to post Day 6 for two reasons. First, CFS is a real thing and has a mind of its own. Someone asked if a day’s rest after a crash resets the body. Maybe. Usually not. I’m faring better than I anticipated thanks to your prayers. But the weight of fatigue still has its way. I’ve stayed back from our sites yesterday and today because the spirit is very willing, but the flesh voices her wisdom and I really have no choice but listen.

Second, the internet in our room is slow, so I see the dreaded spinning wheel when I try to post. I will write each day, but the posts my not appear until after we leave the island.

Yesterday, we moved from our traveling by bus portion of our pilgrimage to crossing Galway Bay via ferry. Our pilgrims will walk to our sites here in Inishmore, all but one day. I miss the cadence, the meditative rhythm of walking as a group. But know our pilgrims walk the talk of pilgrimage and will be fine.

The island is in a water restriction due to drought. The entire island turns off the water between 11:00-5:00 P.M. We must boil our water for teeth brushing or use bottled water, and be mindful of water usage.

I don’t think the rain our pilgrims are walking in now will have much impact on the water shortage, but the combination of both inconveniences, the limitation of water use and praying in the rain, offer a taste of true pilgrimage.

We’re on the back half of the pilgrimage and this is the time where we may have inklings about how God invites us to live life in different ways. Exciting and sometimes daunting. It is also the point where, “The invitation of God creates resistance because it is a call to change and vulnerability and we have a basic urge to avoid both.” (Elizabeth Canham)

I’ll list our wild edges and their sacred sites so you might imagine how they invite you into change and how vulnerable that is and why we have a basic urge to avoid both.

Morning Ferry-The Wild Edge of Transition
Teampall Bheannaín-The Wild Edge of a New Vision
St. Columba’s Well-The Wild Edge of Who You Are
St. Edna’s House-The Wild Edge of Healing the World

#doolinferry #wildedgefaithpilgrimage #inismór #stenda by @wildedgefaith

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taken in Doolin, County Clare, Ireland by @wildedgefaith

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Pilgrimage Day 5

Doolin Cave and Desert Day-The Wild Edge of Cutting Deep

The first half of the day our pilgrims descended 125 steps equivalent to 8 stories, into the depths of Doolin Cave. The limestone wonder contains the largest stalactite in Europe, remnants of a ancient Mediterranean seabed, and fossils from a coral reef.

Why would we include a seemingly secular site on a pilgrimage?

1. It’s too cool to pass by.
2. The early Celtic Christians knew all creation reflected the glory of the Creator.
3. It’s a beautiful physical representation of the interior spiritual journey.

The second half of the day we gave the pilgrims a desert day, an extended, silent time alone with the prayer guide and their journal.

I knew my knee could not handle the weight bearing of all those steps, so I opted to stay at our B&B in the morning.

In the afternoon we prayed with Psalm 42:6 and Job 12:22, as well as Mary Oliver’s words,

Someone gave me
a box full of darkness.

It took me years to understand

that this too is gift.

My time in prayer returned me to previous pilgrimages and the work begun there. Healing and redemption have been a theme in most of the pilgrimages I make because sometimes it is a long journey in the same direction to receive those gifts of the Spirit.

It’s late now and I need to go to sleep.
Hope we all sleep well, friends!

#Doolincave #MaryOliver #pilgrimage #wildedgefaithpilgrimage taken in Doolin, County Clare, Ireland by @wildedgefaith

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by @wildedgefaith

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Pilgrimage Day 4

I stayed back from dinner tonight. Trying to pace well before a crash supports my desires-to accompany our pilgrims to our sacred sites.

Our timing was a bit off today, cutting short our prayer time at 2 sites. Pilgrimage is like that. You plan, things change, everyone adapts the best they can.

We first stopped at Teampall an Chairn, Carron Church Ruins. The medieval church has few distinctive features. A Calvary Cross etched in the pointed arch portal. A carved head with a helmet called a basinet or padded hood worn under a helmet, typically worn by crusaders. And a machicolation, a protruding battlement often used for defensive actions.

Although originally a place of worship, our edge here was the wild edge of our warrior self.

We didn’t have much time to chew on that content, because we had reservations at our next site for a sheepdog demonstration where the role of shepherd, sheepdog and their relationship with livestock was brought to life.

On the same property we visited a ring fort, Caherconnell with archeological evidence of settlements dating back to the Bronze Age through to the Iron Age.

We prayed with the wild edge of adaptation.

We ended the day at Poulnabrone Dolmen, a 5,800 year old portal tomb.
We don’t know what the ancient peoples believed about death, but we know the tomb was in continuous use for over 600 years, and most likely into the Celtic period.

Very appropriate for a tomb, we prayed with the edge of threshold crossing.

In my times of prayer I considered the poem Ceap. A ceap is an Gaelic word meaning tree stump. During the Iron Age they hammered a tree trunk into the ground to provide a sturdy base for anvil. The word came to mean the place a person felt most rooted and nurtured.

I prayed with the questions what do I need to feel rooted? Grounded? Nurtured?

The answers surprised me, but it is late and I am tired.

But I will say, the questions are worthy of consideration.

#CaherconnellFort #PoulnabroneDolmen #ceap by @wildedgefaith

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Pilgrimage Day 3

We traveled to 3 sites on three different edges today.

Leanmaneh Castle-Wild Edge of Power
The Burren Perfumery-The Wild Edge of Oasis
Corcomroe Abbey-the Wild Edge of Identity

We also experienced three seasons within a few hours!

We prayed in the rain, shivered as we journaled, ate lunch under giant outdoor umbrellas with the fresh scent of an Irish summer rain in the air.

Don and I brought a camp chair and stool for me to keep my leg elevated as we spent 2 hours at each site with our prayer guide and journal.

God met me in many ways, but one line from our prayer guide shifted my day from doing prayer to receiving a prayer.

I gather myself in the name of God who cradles my heart.

That image, which became a felt sense, a felt reality, released me from wanting something out of my prayer time and allowed me to just be. As I lingered there I moved into the questions in our prayer guide.

How have the perceptions others have of you impacted how you perceive yourself?

Of course they impact me, I thought. But I didn’t realize until then those perceptions shaped a resistance to live large.

I sat outside Corcomroe Abbey, facing an enclosure wall, just beyond the stones a grand view of Cnoc na Mainistreach, Abbey Hill.

As I sketched the wall as part of my prayer practice, these words came to me:
Living Large-Beyond the wall of other people’s imagined version of Charlotte.

I would like to say I’ve grown beyond caring what other people think of me. I am in a much different place than I was a decade ago. Yet, I m still vulnerable to people’s projections. Not always, but enough times to break my heart, I allow those ideas to dismiss, diminish, and distort my core identity given to me at birth.

Shew, that’s a lot for one day, and enough writing for this CFS weary body.

For now, I go to the wild edge of sleeping well! (I hope.)

#pilgrimage #wildedgefaith #Leanmanehcastle #burrenperfumery #corcomroeabbey by @wildedgefaith

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