Chapter 2. New Hampshire, April 2012—One and a Half Years Later

Wednesday 10/19/22

First some housekeeping: I am humbled and deeply grateful for readers who have chosen to upgrade to paid subscriptions. Thank you so much for your support! You may not be aware how meaningful this is to me.

For someone who loves to play with words, I’m made aware of the limitations of language by the ineffable nature of this feeling in my heart in knowing that readers are valuing and supporting my writing in this way. Eternal gratitude, love and blessings✨🌟💖🙏🕊

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And today, I would like to share with you Chapter 2 of the book, The Rising of the Divine Feminine and the Buddhist Monks Across the Road: A Memoir. 

To recap: a scene in the first chapter shows our protagonist (who is of course a character of myself that I created on the page) in a New York City hospital emergency room with her husband in October 2010, where they learn that Jamie most likely has cancer, but what she hears is that he’s going to die. The scene in the ER ends with a knock on the door. In Chapter 2, we flash forward to April 2012, which begins the braided narrative.

April 2023 UPDATE: In October 2022, when I first began releasing serialized chapters of The Rising of the Divine Feminine and the Buddhist Monks Across the Road: A Memoir by Camilla Sanderson (yours truly), chapters were free to all subscribers. However, chapters are now released and available to read for free for one month after publication, after which they move behind the paywall. If you like what you’re reading and want to start from the beginning, I urge you to buy a subscription to keep reading.

I also provide other free content here.

To read a description of the book, please read the bottom of the post: An Invitation. You may also visit the Table of Contents.

Copyright © 2023 by Camilla Sanderson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or reprinted without the author’s written permission.

Chapter 2. New Hampshire, April 2012—One and a Half Years Later

A thirty-minute drive through wooded hills brings me into the suburban sprawl of Amherst, New Hampshire. Just around the corner and down the road from the local Walmart, I arrive in a parking lot that serves an assortment of about sixteen pale gray, one-level business condominiums. I spot the sign, Tree of Life Interfaith Temple and park right in front.

Inside, an entrance space with a shoe rack invites me to take off my shoes, which I do. I knock on the door and Reverend Stephanie opens it. When I look into her eyes something inside me clicks. It’s a kind of recognition, like I’ve known her before. Later I’ll be convinced we’ve known each other in a past life. 

She greets me warmly and invites me into a large open room. Sunshine pours in through the windows, accentuating the wood floors and warm apricot-colored walls. A faint smell of incense lingers. Between the windows sits an altar with a mala of dark-wooden beads threaded into a loop, a Native American Indian drum, and a miniature gong. On the wall is an evocative painting of a Buddha sculpture — when I look at it, I can’t help but feel a sense of equanimity. A painting on the adjacent wall offers a stern depiction of Mother Theresa. In the corner sits a large braided Fichus tree that I later learn is referred to fondly as the Tree of Life. 

I notice I feel at home in this sacred space.

Rev. Stephanie leads me to a smaller room at the back, we both enter and she closes the door to this inner sanctum. She invites me to sit in a white wicker-frame two-seater couch with padded cushions, and she sits across from me in a single wicker chair. I sense she’s relaxed and fully present. I feel comfortable and safe. Like I don’t need any pretense or to be on guard — such a contrast to various business meetings I attended in New York City. I relax into a peacefulness, as though the stars have aligned, and I am exactly where I am meant to be. I’m aware I have no thought chatter in my mind. I’m completely at ease.    

I’d guess her to be in her early sixties. Her soft, brown eyes reveal a gentleness of spirit. She asks me about my background and tells me about hers: she was a psychology professor, a therapist, a yoga teacher, and is the author of several books. I ask her more about her spiritual background.

“Well, I’ve studied with many different spiritual teachers from many different faith traditions. Native American Indians, Sikhs, Sufis, Buddhists, Jewish scholars, Shamans, Hindus… but I never wanted to have to choose between them,” she says. “Then one day when I was looking online, I was delighted to find something called interfaith. I kept looking and I found the New Seminary for Interfaith Studies in New York City. Long story short, I enrolled and was ordained an interfaith minister in 2005. Then in 2009 I founded the Tree of Life seminary program and in 2011 the Tree of Life Interfaith Temple. The seminary is my heart's desire — to give others their own experience of many are the ways we pray to one God through exposure to the spiritual practices across faith traditions.” 

I had read on her website about the seminary program she created and I said to her, “I love the sound of the Path of Crow and the idea of interfaith, and I’m drawn to learning the wisdom from world religions to use in my day-to-day life. But I have to say I’m not really interested in becoming an ordained minister.” 

She nods and waits. 

“I’m curious—what’s the difference between the ordination and the non-ordination paths on this spiritual journey?” 

“Not much,” she says.

“Oh…” I pause a moment to consider this. “Then I guess, why wouldn’t anyone take the ordination path?” 

“Exactly,” she says, encouraging me to go for it.

We talk for an hour. I don’t remember all that we discussed, but I do remember just before I left, almost as an afterthought she says, “I also want to emphasize that through my own spiritual inner work, I’ve come to experience immense freedom and liberation.” 

Again I sense my soul resonate. Intuitively I know I will learn from this spiritual teacher. 

Driving back home I sense an ecstatic feeling radiating out from my chest. With my hands on the wheel and attention on the road and the surrounding cars, another part of my mind reflects back on how spirituality has manifested in my life. Ever since I was a kid I’ve been intrigued by the unseen: including the mystical and the magical. But growing up, religion had always repelled my parents, and as an adult, now me as well. Perhaps the dogma and judgmental attitudes just felt at odds with the ineffable. 

But as I drive back to TreeTops, our decades-old log cabin in the woods, it dawns on me: I had been unconsciously yearning for a spiritual — not religious — mentor.

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And where I have clarity now, that I did not have before writing this book, is around the ways in which I experience my own sense of spirituality: in nature; in my relationships — with my partner, with my family of origin, in close friendships; in sharing heart-centered laughter; in the expression of creativity and a sense of the Divine flowing through me; in connections in community; in the spiritual practices that I will learn in interfaith seminary where I will experience times when “sacred sound awakens mystical unity”; in nourishing myself through food and home, creating an overall sense of health in body, mind, emotions and spirit; in certain geographic locations — like where I grew up in Pittwater, Australia, and where I now live in TreeTops, and even in parts of New York City.

I have also experienced how certain intensely-focused activities in nature — like sailing, windsurfing, skiing, even hiking — give me a sense of spaciousness within, where there is no thought chatter in my mind.

I came to understand this state of mind-heart-and-soul, is equivalent to honoring the mystical; a kind of spiritual ‘being’ in the world, for which I have always yearned.

Click to read chapter 3.