A Reflection From The Heart by Charlotte Futcher

Charlotte Futcher participated in Holy Wisdom, the Mother of God with Matthew Wright in September, 2019 at the Cowichan Lake Research Station on Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. She generously shared her experience.

During that crisp and sunny week spent at the Lake Cowichan Forest Research Station, with the lake lapping and greens transforming to reds all around us, I went through a reintroduction to and transformation in the relationships with both myself and the Divine Feminine. I was held in warm smiles, the notes of Mary’s harp, the protection of the forest, the beauty of the beach’s pebbles, and the quiet-ness of shared silence. I was held by Sophia.

It was the kind of embrace with a secureness that doesn’t restrict you, but makes you feel loved and limitless. Matthew and Seemi’s teachings lulled me into a peace that I didn’t know I was so hungry for. I couldn’t have anticipated any of what I would take out of 2019’s retreat with The Contemplative Society, yet I feel like it was so crucial to my growth at this time of my life. I am so grateful for the opportunity to have attended that week. I felt surrounded by wisdom, curiosity, and inspiration.

On the last morning of the retreat, I walked into Lake Mesachie and rested into the coolness. Floating at the surface, the sun warmed my face and the front of my body while the brisk water lifted me up. It was an interesting kind of balance. I swam down into the vastness of the lake, deeper and deeper and deeper. The water was a deep and alluring turquoise. Turning and looking up towards the surface, the sun crept through the ripples and turned a strip of that turquoise colour into a pure and piercing white. I wished I could’ve stayed there forever. Everything below the surface felt so perfect. I felt so weightless. So held. But I returned to the surface to immediately feel the warmth of the sun on my face and to see the rolling hills that hug the lake, in a gold cloak of light.

“Hello, Sophia.”