exploring cycles of life, death & renewal
Constance here. Welcome to this sanctuary for the creative, contemplative and curious. Put on your goggles. We’re diving deep into the Mystery.
In ancient times, people would travel hundreds of miles to visit a temple. To reach this remote holy site one had to pass through a buffer zone, such as a wide meadow or sacred grove. This consecrated area was called a fanum.
Mystics and devotees who spent a lot of time in the fanum were called fanatici, from which we get the word fanatic. It used to have a more noble connotation, until a smear campaign painted them as “too much,” extremists and zealots.
Our common word fan is an abbreviation of fanatic. You become a fan of something because it brings your awareness to the holy place. You can reach it from any direction — anything that gives you a whiff of the Divine: exquisite beauty, deep peace, a profound level of mastery, even a garden, or a baby’s innocence.
The modern word profane comes from this: pro meaning before + fane, rooted in fanum. Profane means “everything before the fanum.” It wasn’t that people had to go a great distance to reach the holy place, it’s that they weren’t attuned to the sacred until they came to the fanum.
This site, then, acts as a digital fanum: a place to remind us to connect with and attune to the temple within us.
... was from my 7th grade teacher, Mr. Olsen, after he caught me handing off a note to my friend Nikki. He told me to go wait for him outside. Not in the hall where the nuns made you stand, so everyone could cast a shaming look – tsk, tsk – but outside, in the fresh air. He started talking in that...
A few weeks ago I stumbled upon an announcement for an Arts in Nature Festival. I had other projects planned, yet I resonated strongly with the festival’s focus. I imagined myself creating a massive nest, and then inviting participants to write their Dream on a piece of paper and place it in the...
Birthing a Dream isn't like going to an ATM machine. It's not like on Amazon.com: To get your Dream by Tuesday, order in the next 5 hours and 28 minutes (and click Overnight shipping). IF it was that easy, it wouldn't be much of a Dream, would it? That's why you hardly ever hear anyone say, "My...
It's frustrating. Disheartening. Why can't I just breakthrough to another level? Why can't I manifest my Dream? Believe me, I've been there. I've noticed three things when I'm caught in a loop of one step forward, two steps back. You may be familiar with the work of the late psychologist Abraham...
The reason more people don't go for their Dream is they lack either clarity or courage. To change our course, we often have to give up one thing – safety, predictability, the known – for the big Unknown, buoyed only by our innocent hope for something better. Often leaving one path to take another,...
