Mud & Spirit

Seeking a Liturgy of the Wild, (Part 19)

The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Genesis 2:7

So we’re mud people with a holy breath sweeping through us? I could live with that. Not tree people so much, or zebra people, pomegranate people, but mud people. I like the primality of it. It’s an image I could get behind. It’s not nice. It’s not a florid Renaissance sketch, but something you can imagine seeing daubed on a cave wall before someone blows the wick out. Bearing in mind the rib story, I’m going to work this image with women and men alike. I’ve sat at hundreds of camp fires over the last twenty-five years and seen folk prepare to get back in touch with their essential mud, their dust nature. Granted until this very moment I would never have phrased it thus, but I suspect it’s going to stick. Maybe it’s easier for God to find our nostrils when we are suitably humble, suitably mudded.

I want to speak to the mud in us.

A few weeks ago I was writing about myth as Sacred Story. I want to think now about a particular ingredient in many sacred stories, what the anthropologists call Severance, Threshold, Return. Many of you will know about this so you can just chant along and chuck peanuts at me. It’ll be worth the revisiting. I’ll present it like a story.