A Symbol in the Forest

Hello beloved reader,

(I recorded the audio for this post while sitting outside on our deck — you can tell it’s summer here in the Northern hemisphere as the birds are singing beautifully in the background🤩🥰)

I’m still in the midst of working on a book proposal in a class with Beth Kempton, so I just wanted to share with you a photo of this beautiful symbol I saw while walking through the woods at the neighboring Buddhist monastery.

The monastery grounds are quietly marked by these small, hand-made signs—nonverbal offerings that add to the sense that this land is sacred, perhaps pointing towards how this moment is sacred too.

I found myself lingering by this symbol longer than I intended to. I didn’t know exactly what it was. But I felt its impact. It stilled me. It called me upright. It reminded me of the thin thread of energy that, in every human spine, runs from base to crown—the same line the Buddha traced when he sat beneath the Bodhi Tree and vowed not to rise until he was free.

I later learned it’s called an unalome—a sacred symbol in Thai and Buddhist traditions, marking the soul’s journey toward enlightenment.

The spirals at the base represent the chaos and confusion of early life, when we’re entangled in worldly concerns and ego-driven striving. The line that ascends shows the slow, steady progress of spiritual clarity. And the thin line tapering off at the top symbolizes release—nirvana, or the freedom that comes with letting go.

I learned online that in traditional Thai Buddhist practice, these symbols often appear as Sak Yant tattoos or yantras—mystical diagrams and sacred geometries inscribed onto the body or temple grounds for protection, energy alignment, and as visual meditations. True to their intent, in the forest monastery it felt like a whisper: something ephemeral and reverent, offered to the tree like a prayer.

What struck me most was how the unalome does not bypass the spiral. It begins in complexity. It honors the wandering. The path to awakening is not a straight ascent but a spiral of becoming—of mistakes, insights, and return.

I stood quietly beside the tree for a while. Listening. Sensing into its energy. Remembering that what I call the Divine Feminine also moves in ever-deepening spirals. That nature does not rush. That every twist in the path belongs.

We so often think of awakening as a mountaintop moment, but what if it’s more like this? A small, carved offering. A path that winds. A breath drawn between pine needles and prayer bells. A return to stillness, not through perfection, but through presence.

May we honor the spiral.
May we trust its turning.
And may we each cultivate the cessation of suffering.