In this engaging conversation, Christine Sine interviews Rev. Danae Ashley, an Episcopal priest and psychotherapist, exploring her journey of faith, the significance of liturgy, and the role of rituals in therapy, particularly in the context of fertility struggles and liminal times. Rev. Ashley shares her unique perspective on how liturgy shapes personal faith and community, and how rituals can help individuals navigate complex emotional experiences. In this conversation, Rev. Danae Ashley shares her insights on healing through personal rituals, the importance of community engagement, and the significance of Hildegard von Bingen’s legacy. The discussion explores how rituals can help individuals navigate life’s transitions and the transformative experience of pilgrimage. Rev. Ashley also delves into her newfound purpose in connecting Hildegard’s teachings with psychotherapy, emphasizing the intertwining of spirituality and mental health.
Takeaways
- Rev. Danae Ashley emphasizes the importance of community in spiritual journeys.
- Liturgy is a powerful tool for shaping personal faith and identity.
- Rituals provide a framework for understanding and processing life’s transitions.
- Art and creativity play a vital role in healing and therapy.
- Rev. Ashley’s journey reflects a deep connection to her faith and community.
- Understanding the history and meaning of liturgy enhances spiritual practice.
- Rituals in therapy can create a safe space for exploring grief and loss.
- Rituals help mediate big feelings in life.
- Pilgrimages can lead to unexpected discoveries.
- The teachings of Hildegard von Bingen, a polymath and healer, can inform psychotherapy.
- Understanding Hildegard deepens our connection to nature.
- The intersection of spirituality and mental health is vital.
The Rev. Danáe Ashley is an Episcopal priest and licensed marriage and family therapist who has ministered with parishes in North Carolina, New York, Minnesota, and the Seattle area and is a psychotherapist at Soul Spa Seattle, LLC. Danáe uses art, music, drama, poetry, and movement in counseling, spiritual direction, and creation of ritual. She has written for a variety of publications, as well as being a contributor to podcasts, books, and producing a play about fertility struggle. Her latest adventure has been on pilgrimage with St. Hildegard von Bingen: speaking and writing about Hildegard, viriditas, and psychotherapy. She is working on her forthcoming book about these subjects. Danae’s favorite pastimes include reading, traveling with her husband, making sure their rescue dog Cooper is living his best life, dancing with wild abandon to Celtic music, and serious karaoke.
Learn more about Rev. Ashley’s work at soulspaseattle.com.
Website: https://www.soulspaseattle.com/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/soulspaseattle
IG: @soulspaseattle
Find out more about Christine Sine on
Walking In Wonder on Substack
and on her website Godspacelight
And on social media:
Instagram
Facebook
X
Happy Christmas from Nashville! Yes! It’s still Christmas and for that, I am truly thankful.
This December has flown by and thanks to travel and family celebrations out of town, I haven’t celebrated the season the way I had hoped. There hasn’t been enough time for just being present. For just sitting and reading and looking at the Christmas tree and enjoying the lights. So I am fully embracing the 12 days of Christmas and keeping the celebration going. I plan to keep watching holiday movies and listening to Christmas music at least through Epiphany, January 6th.
Today began with an intense rain storm, so I turned on all the Christmas lights and lit the candles and and made coffee and jumped into my Advent reading. Yep, I didn’t get very far in the daily readings, so I am using these days after the 25th to do a bit of catch up and reflection. Reminding myself that it’s still Christmas despite the man I saw yesterday taking his tree to the curb!
I am fully embracing the Church Year and I want you to give yourself permission to do the same! Enjoy the whole SEASON OF CHRISTMAS ….and this is day 3!
What would you like to do to keep the celebration going? What things help you celebrate the season and remember the Birth of Jesus rather than jumping back into busyness and business as usual?
Have you noticed that we tend to grow Jesus up really fast in the lectionary readings? This weekend, Jesus is getting in trouble with his parents for being in the temple while they had headed home after the Passover feast. Jesus at age 12!
But in reality, Jesus is still in the manger! Mary is learning to be a mom and no one is getting much sleep! I doubt that Mary and Joseph have found better lodgings just yet, or that Mary felt much like moving very far.The shepherds might have found them some friends to stay with…or if the couple were in the lower part of a family’s home, the barn portion of the dwelling,…they might have been invited upstairs to be more included. But still, Jesus is a new born, nursing around the clock, needing his diapers changed and there isn’t a Target or Tesco in site!
If you are a parent, what do you remember about those first few days of having a baby?
I have some friends who just had a baby this month and they are learning together how to be parents. They are totally excited and totally exhausted! I got to hold this beautiful little boy and enjoy that new baby smell and be reminded of the wonder of birth. The fact that anyone gets born is a true miracle. I remember when I was pregnant, thinking about the miracle of hatching a person, not a puppy! A person who would be uniquely themselves formed inside me but definitely not in my control. I imagine Mary and Joseph just sitting in awe and wonder at this beautiful miracle boy. They had time to process the visit of the shepherds and all they told them about the angelic host. They probably recounted the other angelic visits and planned how they would go to Jerusalem to name him officially Jesus!
Why is it hard for us to let Jesus be a baby? Why do we race ahead and grow him up?
Take some time today to imagine the story of the days after the birth of Jesus. Consider Mary and Joseph. How have they changed? How are they the same?
What about the shepherds? What do you imagine they did after seeing the baby?
How are you changed by the birth of this baby?
The Incarnation means that Jesus came as one of us. God sent Jesus into our REAL LIFE! The mess, the beauty, the clutter, the pain the pleasure, the frustration, and even into the suffering. God loves us so much that God sent a baby to show us who God is ! This means that our earthly life is honored. Our earthly life is beautiful to God. Our earthly lives are a wonderful miracle and Jesus came to show us how to have this life in abundance !
baby lotion
PRACTICE:
If you are out and about this week, buy a bottle of baby lotion. The kind that smells. Use this as a physical reminder of the birth of Jesus. Put some on and let the smell of it enfold you into the wonder of Jesus with us! Take a walk down the baby aisle at a local store…think about all the things a newborn needs. All the things that new parents deal with and ponder Mary and Joseph as new parents. Pray for parents that you know. Pray for people who want to be parents. Ask Jesus to show you the wonder of GOD WITH US this week.
I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. John 10:10
Thank you Jesus for coming to us as a baby.
Thank you for reminding us that our humanity matters.
Thank you for the wonder of God with us.
Thank you for reminding us of The beauty of birth, the messiness of birthing and the pain of parenting.
You are with us in all of it. You are with us in the mess.
Help us to know your love deeply this holiday season.
Wrap us in your love just as Mary wrapped you in swaddling clothes.
We love you Jesus. AMEN
©lillylewin and freerangeworship.com
Finding Your Thinplace Pilgrimage : Spaces are limited, so make your reservation to join us in Scotland Sept. 1-9, 2025
ART: Madonna of the Meadow by Giovanni Bellini
by Laurie Klein
Black sheep? Moi? Oh yes: In childhood I cradled my stuffed counterpart, complete with music box. During adolescence I perched it atop the desk handed down from my mother.
Seven decades later, it sits near my keyboard, flop ears and button eyes cocked my way.
Twist the oval brass ring in its belly and the song still plays, almost as if time runs backward and my Mom croons the lullaby words of Brahms. I remember one night, an insecure new mama myself, I asked to hear it again, her voice by then crackly with age.
Sleepyhead, close your eyes.
Mother’s right here beside you.
Do we ever outgrow the childlike longing to be held? Rescued?
Re-wind with me . . .
to a distant, long-ago night. A swaddled infant’s gaze locks on his mother’s brimming eyes.
Perhaps Mary sings:
Guardian angels are near,
So sleep on, with no fear.
From starlit Bethlehem, slip further back in time. A month will do. Picture slopes and valleys partially blanketed in wool, as if fallen clouds rest on the earth. These sheep are specifically raised for temple sacrifice.
And King David’s descendants keep watch.
Farther afield, a grizzled shepherd bows over a feed trough. He swaddles a flailing newborn lamb. The birth rags will protect spindly new legs from harm. Little eyes close, the damp body nestled in warmth.
Does the shepherd pipe a tune?
I’ll protect you from harm,
You will wake in my arms.
What of this motherless lamb? And that ewe, over yonder, grieving over a stillborn body?
How gently the shepherd nudges the bereaved mother aside. How painstakingly he bathes the orphan in the dead lamb’s placental blood.
And then, how wondrous, the milk of recognition, the miracle of adoption!
From these hills we can look toward Bethlehem or, five miles north, toward Jerusalem; from incarnation to eventual crucifixion.
Among these grasslands hundreds and hundreds of lambs were once raised for twice daily sacrifices in the temple. Thousands more met the priestly blade at Passover. BUT . . .
. . . before that feast of remembrance, each household brought their best lamb into their home for several days. Hand-fed it. Treated it as family. Maybe the children named it.
Everyone knew that when they presented their gift to the priest, he would ask them this: “Do you love this lamb?”
Spotless, cherished lambs led to the temple.
My threadbare black sheep on my desk.
Heaven’s Lamb—who loves us.
Now and forever NOEL, noel, noel . . .
What sacrifice might Love ask you to make this Christmas?
Black sheep, white sheep: Photo by Megan Johnston on Unsplash
Close-up, white sheep Photo by Sam Carter on Unsplash
Lamb: Photo by Bill Fairs on Unsplash
by Laurie Klein
Have you seen my alter-ego? I call her Eeyore, after the classic Pooh character: a morose, self-pitying donkey ever-expecting the worst. Think: forgotten birthdays, cold rain and sodden dejection. Thistles and limp balloons.
Lord knows, I’m a gloomster at times. Even at Christmas. When pessimism feeds on fresh dread and old disappointments, I take on the splayed, dug-in stance of those braying creatures in old westerns: mulish, stubborn, unbudgeable.
Turns out, my intel’s outdated. As are my assumptions.
Donkeys are intuitively sensitive to threat and actively protect one another. They safeguard livestock. Picture snapping teeth, sensational back-kicks deflecting coyotes and wolves.
Once, during Bible times, a donkey outwitted her stubborn master, so obsessed with his agenda he missed the sword-wielding angel of God blocking their way! The stouthearted ass veered. Three times. Each time, her rider, blind to their shared peril, beat her with his staff. (You can read her cagey reproof in Numbers 22, roundly amen-ed by the angel.)
So here’s to God’s gentle, vigilant beasts of burden.
May I be more like them. Guide a blind herd mate to water? Oh yes. Transport what I’m called to carry without complaint? May I emulate the self-aware donkey, uniquely able to view all four hooves at one time, thus nimbly traverse deserts and crumbling mountain switchbacks.
Joseph’s donkey, perhaps going silver around the muzzle, carried Jesus to Bethlehem; a stranger’s donkey bore Christ through Jerusalem.
Joyous Noels and Hosannas can be lovely, optimistic, but fleeting. “Bear one another’s burdens,” Paul said, “and so fulfill the law of Christ.”
My default personality suddenly seems more promising.
Still, lonesome blues will set in again, and sometimes, a feeling of doom. What do we do when heartache overwhelms hope?
Remember with me ancient Israeli families, commanded to sacrifice the firstborn male of all their flocks. The donkey, considered unclean, got a pass. “Redeem with a lamb every firstborn donkey…” (Ex. 13:13). https://biblehub.com/exodus/13-13.htm
A sobering, deep-down amen, to the perfect Lamb, once and for all sacrificed, in our place.
How has someone shouldered your burden lately?
How has someone shouldered your burden lately?
Donkey Photo by Luis Palicio on Unsplash
Lamb, in enclosure Photo by Daniel Sandvik on Unsplash
by Laurie Klein
Dear friends, we are between Noels, past and pending. This year, I’m learning about creatures that might have shared that long-ago Holy Night. Welcome to “Oasis: Between Noels, Part II.”
Errands . . . gatherings . . . holiday lists . . . To misquote Hamlet, To do or not to do, that is the question.”
Dare I multitask, count hurry a virtue, knowing the word “haste” once meant “violence”?
A slower pace might invoke peace. Consider the camel. Measured, intentional steps plod across shifting dunes, thus prevent the body from sinking.
When I married Dreamer, unresolved sorrows often buried me. “Tell me a story,” I said one day, desperate for a distraction. Enter “Luigi the Camel.” Dreamer launched what would become a tradition. Kidnapped one day, hapless Luigi headlined the visiting circus. On another rainy day, Luigi gate-crashed the school Christmas pageant.
To this day, I cannot spell the sounds that camel makes! If laughter is medicine, Luigi reliably shoos off my blues.
A camel instinctively knows how to cope. Escalating heat? No worries; fur reflects light. Plus, the animal’s remarkable countercurrent blood flow cools body as well as brain.
Fatty tissue stored in the hump can be metabolized into water as well as energy. Ingenious nostrils cradle precious expelled vapor, reabsorb it for later use.
Might these conserving actions relate to treasuring the Word in one’s heart? So many words already fill my holiday lists. Better to store God’s Word within.
I need an oasis. A daydream. A side-trip, real or not.
I could follow Luigi into Macy’s. Or take a backyard mosey, shoeless, like Moses, padding into the realm of stillness where an eloquent bush might, for a moment, blaze, as if it knows my name.
“So much depends on the light,” Margaret Atwood says, “and the way you squint.”
Give me prayer, practical as a camel’s translucent third eyelid: moving back and forth, sweeping away debris; clearing vision, for close-ups and vistas.
Did you know the Arabic word for camel means “beauty”?
May we step lovely toward the unknown . . .
Scout each day’s waiting oasis.
Sip and Savor.
Store up goodness.
Will you join me?
For starters, here’s a walking prayer I’m using these days. In waltz time, hold each line in your mind, or speak or sing it aloud, with each inhale and exhale.
I am yours,
chosen and known;
evermore,
yours alone.
Even now,
breath and bone,
Holy Noel,
sing me home.
“To do, or not to do.” In what ways will you refresh others this season?
P.S. In Kenya, The Camel Library carries books to far-flung folks, thirsting for stories, poetry, knowledge
Photo by Francesco Ungaro on Unsplash
Photo by Roxanne Desgagnés on Unsplash
Happy Weekend before Christmas! How is it going? This is usually the time when the LIST of things to do gets longer, not shorter and the expectations we’ve had for the “perfect” holiday have to be re-evaluated and need to be thrown out the window. If you work at a church or live with someone who does, that holiday feeling may not be what you wish it was! In fact that holiday feeling is probably exhaustion! As I type this I am sitting with a half decorated Christmas tree and a very messy dining room. Both must be dealt with swiftly so I can go pack for trip to celebrate the holidays with Rob’s family.
Two of his sisters have late December birthdays and his youngest decided to throw a party at the beach this weekend. A lovely gift but it takes work to travel anytime, but especially at the holidays. And it takes a little brain floss for me to think warm when I’m sitting in winter temperatures. I finally got my suitcase unpacked from our anniversary trip so I can repack with “summery” clothes.
I love to decorate the tree! For me the tree is Christmas! I have had a tree every year since we got married I say I, because my Grinch husband isn’t a big fan. Some trees we cut down, some we purchased at a tree lot. During the pandemic when the boys were in other states, we found a bargain artificial tree and bought it. Just three pieces and the lights were already on it! What a gift to the Grinch! Plus it was tall and could accommodate all my ornaments. We collect ornaments from places we travel and the boys have gotten ornaments in their stocking each year so that they can have their own trees with decorations that hold memories!
Since the kitchen ceiling flooded while we were away, I got way behind on decorating and I knew I didn’t have time to decorate the big artificial tree. So Grinch Rob said I could get a tree that was as tall as I am. Last week I went to the local tree stand and found a five foot tree that I could carry on my own! And it is now set up on a table in the midst of everything. I finally put the lights on it last night because I really wanted white Christmas lights but they were sold out and my order isn’t arriving til tomorrow! I dug out the old colorful Christmas lights last night and started the process! And boy to I miss the ease of a pre-lit tree.
How do you view the Christmas tree? Is is a gift or a chore? Is it your work of art or just another task on the list of things to do?
I am a huge tree fan in general!. Trees speak to me. We chose our neighborhood in Cincinnati because of the trees and our house had an amazing 100 year old oak tree in the front yard. In this house in Nashville, I have a beautiful magnolia tree that was planted by the builder and an ugly old tree that I wouldn’t let be cut down because it was the only one left on our street! The birds and the squirrels are thankful.
I am thankful for the imagery of trees in the Bible. They are life giving and celebratory!
“So you’ll go out in joy, you’ll be led into a whole and complete life. The mountains and hills will lead the parade, bursting with song. All the trees of the forest will join the procession, exuberant with applause. No more thistles, but giant sequoias, no more thornbushes, but stately pines— Monuments to me, to GOD, living and lasting evidence of GOD.”
Isaiah 55:12-13 The Message (MSG)
What trees come to mind when you think of trees in the Bible?
The tree in the Garden of Eden, the tree planted by streams in Psalm 1 and the ones I’d forgotten about in Revelation.
Then the angel showed me a river with the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the Throne of God and of the Lamb. It flowed down the center of the main street. On each side of the river grew a tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit…The leave were used for medicine to heal the nations. REVELATION 22:1-2 NLT
And Isaiah reminds us that the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah involves a NEW tree! New GROWTH from an old stump
ISAIAH 11: 1-10 New International Version
A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him— the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord— and he will delight in the fear of the Lord.
He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist.
The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, the calf and the lion and the yearling[a] together; and a little child will lead them. The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. The infant will play near the cobra’s den, and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.
In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his resting place will be glorious.Roots
What is God’s Word for you today? What is the Holy Spirit speaking to you about? Read again and allow Jesus to speak to your heart.
Roots and New Growth. In what ways have you put down roots in your faith this year? What new growth has taken place?
In what areas would you like to see NEW growth in the year ahead?
How would you like to see righteousness and justice in our land? Spend some time praying about this.
“From Genesis to Revelation…The symbol of a tree in our midst is the promise of sustaining life everlasting. The TREE is always with us. ( Scott Erickson) Honest Advent.
Scott Erickson Art
We put up trees and decorate trees in our yards for Christmas. When you see a Christmas tree be reminded of God’s healing, hope and the PROMISE of EMMANUEL…GOD WITH US!
BIG TREE last Christmas
JUST A REMINDER: When Rob and I both worked on a church staff, at two different churches, we often had a half decorated or even an undecorated tree at this point in the season. We just didn’t have the bandwidth to do all the church things required, and school parties and community events AND have the house the way we’d hoped. So this is our annual reminder that CHRISTMAS IS A SEASON! We are still in ADVENT and Christmas doesn’t begin til Christmas Day and runs until January 6th, Epiphany! So you have lots of time to celebrate and get the things done that are still on your list. With the way the postal service is going both here and in Canada, I think Epiphany presents are totally in order this year! Epiphany is the celebration of the Magi bringing gifts to Jesus and the LIGHT coming to the entire world, not just the Jewish nation. So honor this church calendar this year and celebrate Christmas for the real 12 days of Christmas that fall after the 25th! Give yourself permission to bake the cookies or share a meal with friends, AFTER the 25th! Keep listening to Christmas music, take the time to watch your favorite Christmas movie that you haven’t had time to see. When I lived in Seattle, January was so grey and dreary, that I would leave up my decorations replacing Santas with snowmen and refreshing the greenery from our yard. And leaving up the Christmas lights a little longer brightens everyone’s day!
Merry Christmas from me and the grinch
Let the Christmas Tree remind you of the NEW things Jesus wants to do in your life even from what feels like a dead tree stump! AMEN and Happy Christmas!
by Laurie Klein
Once upon a yard, I collected maple samaras. Ladybugs. Pea-sized mystery-spheres I found under shrubs — until Dad explained bunny droppings.
To this day, I still watch for meaning amid the miniscule.
Friends, here we are again, between Noels, past and pending. I’ve been reading about creatures, even tiny ones, that might have shared that long-ago Holy Night.
But little things are a mixed bag.
For instance: Years ago, after our daughter returned from a mission trip tormented by hatching head lice, Dreamer and I spent hours combing sticky nits from strand after strand of her thick hair.
Parental love to the rescue — liberating one cherished, vulnerable scalp.
Aesop said, “No act of kindness no matter how small is ever wasted.”
Do our grown children remember our past, painstaking efforts? To paraphrase Blaise Pascal, When little things afflict us, even small actions can console us.
Two sisters in Holland, arrested for rescuing Jews during WWII, were remanded to Ravensbrück concentration camp. In Barracks 28, the ten Boom girls slept on reeking pallets swarming with fleas. Their prayers of gratitude for being alive and together included repeated pleas for relief from the infestation.
The vermin, however, thrived.
And those blood-sucking parasites? Turns out, they repelled sadistic prison guards. No inspections. No beatings. No rapes.
Compassion to the rescue — paradoxically — via pestilence.
So, consider the likelihood of itch mites infesting Bethlehem straw: Some types bite; others burrow beneath the skin and lay eggs, causing a contagious, festering rash.
Did they forgo their nature and leave baby Jesus in peace? Oh, I hope so! And if not, do mites possess any redeeming qualities?
I Google . . . and find:
no crucial link in the food chain
no rare source of protein
no secret component to help cure disease
And yet. The utterly despised were granted proximity to Emmanuel, God with us. Compassionate, cherishing Love vulnerably offered to all creation — no matter how repellent or negligible.
Sometimes, it really is the little things. Head lice, fleas, itch mites — one Creator, three ordeals. Head-scratchers, all. Like the teachings of Jesus: If you want to be first, embrace being last. Find yourself by losing yourself.
Truth nips: It gets under our skin and bides its time, hatching later perhaps, as revelation.
Merciful, mysterious God, thank you for your enduring forbearance and endless largesse — embodied for us through, and in spite of, so many little things.
Friend, where might a dash of compassion take you next?
“Anyone who thinks they are too small to make a difference has never tried to fall asleep with a mosquito in the room.” —The Dalai Lama
Flea story here
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
As an Amazon Associate, I receive a small amount for purchases made through appropriate links.
Thank you for supporting Godspace in this way.
When referencing or quoting Godspace Light, please be sure to include the Author (Christine Sine unless otherwise noted), the Title of the article or resource, the Source link where appropriate, and ©Godspacelight.com. Thank you!