{"id":283,"date":"2010-04-13T17:46:57","date_gmt":"2010-04-13T21:46:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=283"},"modified":"2019-01-25T12:14:05","modified_gmt":"2019-01-25T17:14:05","slug":"god-shells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=283","title":{"rendered":"God & Shells"},"content":{"rendered":"

Conversation with God (on a retreat with Deena Metzger, August 1996)<\/p>\n

On the New Moon, we celebrated the Feast of Hecate.\u00a0 Deena asked us to find something to represent a seed, to fill with our visions for the future, and then plant as a seed of a new beginning.\u00a0 I found a lovely little golden shell, like a translucent bubble.\u00a0 I had been walking along the beach talking to God and crying out how difficult this passage was, and when would it be over.\u00a0 The voice said \u201cYou will always be doing this work.\u00a0 But \u2014 it gets easier.\u201d At that moment I saw the shell embedded in a drift of seaweed and knew it was to be my seed.<\/p>\n

The next day I went to the beach again, hoping to find another shell like the one I buried.\u00a0 I looked and looked, especially in the seaweed, but found nothing.\u00a0 Then I decided I should stop looking for what I had found before and take what was offered.\u00a0 Still nothing appeared.\u00a0 Finally I remembered that I had been talking to God when I found the other one, so I started talking to God \u2014 it was hard to make the switch from searching, felt like giving up all hope of ever finding anything \u2014 but the first thing my eye fell on was something that didn\u2019t look like a regular seashell.\u00a0 I picked it up and it was something like the other one, translucent, irregular.\u00a0 I found several more \u2014 they follow no form, no two alike, some flat, some cupped, more or less translucent, color from white to yellow to orange, some have barnacles or seaweed attached.\u00a0 After I found the first few, I considered going back to where I had buried the one I found yesterday and making a switch because that one was so much more beautiful, but I decided that when you plant a seed, you don\u2019t get it back.\u00a0 Unwilling to stop with just a few, I kept looking.\u00a0 I said to God, somewhat apologetically, that I was being very greedy.\u00a0 God answered with more shells.\u00a0 I thought about how God had said \u201cIt will get easier\u201d and found another one.\u00a0 I rejoiced in what was becoming a sizable harvest, but again felt an ache in my heart for the one I had buried.\u00a0 No, you can\u2019t have it back again, not that unique, irreplaceable moment.\u00a0 Other moments will come, with their own beauty, but never that one again.\u00a0 Then I found a shell that was equally as beautiful though very different, and soon afterward a small orange one that also satisfied my heart.\u00a0 By this time my hand was full, I was having trouble piling more on.\u00a0 I thought perhaps I even had enough to give them away to the women in the retreat.\u00a0 (In fact I had thirty-six, but the moment to give them away never arrived.) I found another small orange one and felt that my cup was running over.\u00a0 Turning back, walking along the edge of the small island, my heart began to lift and swell with gratitude.\u00a0 \u201cGod be praised\u201d I cried.\u00a0 \u201cThank you\u201d I said to the beach, the sky, the geese, the seagull.\u00a0 And found another shell.\u00a0 I thought about how one of my constant questions is how can something as fragile as I survive in this hostile world (not God\u2019s natural world, but the one humans have made) but here are these lovely little objects, each unique, and so many of them have survived.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>When I brought them home, I realized that the pinch pots I had been making in pottery class were oddly formed cups similar to the shells.\u00a0 By the way, I’ve been told that the creature that makes the shells is called anomia simplex<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Conversation with God (on a retreat with Deena Metzger, August 1996) On the New Moon, we celebrated the Feast of Hecate.\u00a0 Deena asked us to find something to represent a seed, to fill with our visions for the future, and … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spirit","category-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}