Stepping Further into the Story
Water and Stone
I
’ve come on a pilgrimage to the Cornish cliffs where St. Morwenna walked. As I stand at the edge of the green bluff, my knees weaken with the height and the climb. The hood of my coat whips my cheek; the clover at my feet stands nearly horizontal in the October wind. I look down to where my children and husband play on the beach below, the only people in the vast landscape. Mostly, I see stone—stone in three forms. Swathes of dark orange sand settle into fields of grey sandstone boulders so massive they’re hard to get perspective on, cut across with jagged rusty swords of layered shale pointing out to sea. Over my shoulder, nestling into a valley carved by a stream, stands the church our mother Morwenna founded, part of the beach reconstituted in cruciform on the clifftop. Erected in the time when pagan practice dominated, these standing stones point not to the solstice sunrise but to the Light of the World. If any of the rocks remain that Morwenna herself carried up from the shore, they are now invisible, layered over with the renovation work of subsequent years. But fifteen centuries on, the community of faithful who worship here is still known by her name. If it weren’t for her, they wouldn’t be here. Stone upon stone. As well as stone I see water: the billowing vapor of water in the sky above the vast Atlantic Ocean, with the sunset beginning to dip golden in the west. Rising out of the sea several miles to the
25 Sample pages only. Purchase the full book at http://store.ancientfaith.com/seven-holy-women/
