Theme: Magicians Reporting for Duty

Week 27: my rosary for Praying in the Dark arrived, I put it on, and something happened

Beautiful Magicians,

Yesterday was July 4 in the United States, a day intended to celebrate American independence. A day 250 years ago, when a cluster of wealthy white men in thirteen American colonies decided to break away from Britain. They declared that the two million colonists would no longer obey a king, a tyrant, their oppressor.

It’s a complicated day.

Because, although the sentence, “all men are created equal” feels holy, there were 450,000 enslaved people in America at the time, almost 20% of the population, and they were not in any way free or equal. The man who wrote that sentence, Thomas Jefferson, had 130 enslaved people at Monticello and many more on his other plantations. One of them, Sally Hemings gave birth to six children, who science has proven were Jefferson’s. But there’s another layer that makes this story even creepier. Sally Hemings was inherited by Jefferson when his father-in-law, John Wayles died. Wayles was also Sally’s father by one of Wayles’ enslaved women.

A very real American story, I’m afraid. And not one to celebrate.

The number of enslaved people in 1776 grew exponentially to almost four million by the time of the Civil War. To this we must add the immeasurable genocide of the Native peoples and the theft of their land across the continent.

So, it’s a strange thing to simultaneously applaud the declaration to break free from a cruel king, while in the same moment inflicting unspeakable cruelty on Black and Brown peoples.

I always revisit the complex American story in July. And this week it feels particularly bizarre.

We are watching in horror as a king-wanna-be dismantles the democracy we’ve struggled to build over the last 250 years. I’m appalled, but not surprised, to see the white supremacist group Patriot Front marching through Washington DC wearing white masks and carrying confederate flags. We haven’t moved very far from the Ku Klux Klan.

So it’s hard for me to celebrate Independence Day.

And yet, I am celebrating. I am celebrating REAL independence. Independence that is far bigger and far older than one 250-year-old country.

I am celebrating independence from patriarchal religion.

I didn’t realize until I stopped to ponder the complexity of Independence Day that I do know what real independence feels like.

I’m wearing it.

I received The Song of the Morning of the World rosary this week. This is the first and only rosary to be completely untethered from religion. When I took it out of the box, and held it in my hands, I felt something move through me. Something I’ve never felt before.

It took me a while to recognize the feeling.

• Oh, this is Freedom.
• This is total and complete freedom.
• There is not one whiff, one whisper, one taint of patriarchal religious beliefs or rules.

I started to laugh.

And then I put it on. Like a necklace. And was awash with sensations and emotions.

This rosary is heavy

It has real heft, heft that matches its ancient and new purpose.

This rosary has a voice

Minotaur and Hecate clink together to welcome my hands to pray. When I heard them, I had to add my antique French Joan of Arc medallion, so now there are three voices. And next week a gold bee will join the chorus.

Here's Minotaur. Isn't he magnificent.

This rosary is not pretty

Pretty would require that the beads all be uniform, the same size, the same color, the same crystals. This rosary is Beautiful. Powerful. Magnificent.

This rosary is alive

Every bead is chosen because its crystalline nature mirrors the meaning and purpose of the five Blooms. Each Bloom heals one of the five crimes of patriarchy. Cathy Stevens Pratt researched ethically sourced beads, so they’re not all the same size or color. But oh are they alive!

Here are the lapis beads to heal the theft of our birthright dignity.

This rosary heals division

At a time when religions seem to be fostering division, this precious radical rosary invites us to speak seven couplets that heal gender divisions. Speaking these partnership prayers on these larger Garden Quartz beads is the single most healing and powerful prayers I've ever heard.

This rosary carries echoes

We start the rosary by saying, “I hear echoes of the song of the morning of the world. And I listen in wonder and awe” and then we literally stop and listen. We open our subtle ears to hear something emanating from the deep past when our ancestors prayed in the arms of the Goddess and Mother Earth for tens of thousands of years before patriarchal religion. Their voices are present in what science calls the “morphic field.”

This rosary is a field

A living vibrating, very ancient field. This field is not hampered by any dogma, theology, rules. Rules that religion superimposed onto the rosary to drain all the magic out of it.

• They stuck on a crucifix, an instrument of torture designed to terrorize people into obedience and silence.
• They insisted people repeat a creed, a list of commanded beliefs about only one male god, only one true church, and reminders of judgment, punishment, and death.
• They superimposed a theological story of a god-man who has to die to atone for sin.
• And then, the final insult, they diluted the original divine feminine sweetness by adding the words sinner and death.
• With all those changes, the rosary lost all its transcendental power and became a rote prayer of obligation not a living litany of love.

I now wear my rosary every waking minute. I listen as it sings to me of another world that was, and of the world we are here to create. We pray those five blooms and as we do we are literally creating and cultivating Her Garden of Reverence.

I’ve spent the last two weeks writing new welcome materials including a deep dive into the Five Crimes of Patriarchy and the Five Bloom prayers that heal them.

Please register now, so you have time to absorb all the preparation materials and bonuses. And order a rosary if you like!

We will be praying this rosary through the end of 2028 and probably beyond, so you'll have two or more years to hear your own echoes of the song of the morning of the world. Links to purchase the rosary, companion journal and posters are all on our Resource Page which you'll get when you register.

Click to read all about this prayer intensive, get the schedule, peruse the bonuses, and register.

AND, be sure to watch the brand new video I made to introduce this radical thrilling intensive.

We meet on 4 Tuesdays: July 14, 21, 28 and August 4 at 6pm eastern, a time that works well for the Americas and the Pacific Rim.

Then, to serve everyone who can't make the Tuesday gatherings, I'm hosting Watch Parties on Thursdays at 1pm eastern.

Plus, because we need to just sit and talk about this radical new prayer practice, we'll also have three Sunday cafes.

I've kept the fee very low and even made it possible to invite a friend.

Praying in the Dark

Life is fragile, handle with reverence
and radical, beautiful, living prayer
that is completely independent of religion

Janet
PS: if you have questions, write to me at janet@janetconner.com

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