GAIA MANDALA
GLOBAL HEALING COMMUNITY
My European Journey and Earth Treasure Vase Burial at Plum Village
Dear Friends,
I have just returned from a month in France and a short visit to Switzerland. Each day was a blessing of beauty, graced with joy and ease. I am so grateful to Charlotte Dufour who hosted me at her retreat center, Les Marions, introduced me to her extended community in Geneva and organized two beautiful retreats and several talks before driving me across France to stay with beloved friends near Plum Village and meet up with Gaia Mandala teachers, Elizabeth Christine and Rick Jansen, and later with Rasul Bravo, for some weeks of retreat in Plum Village, the home and center of Thich Nhat Hanh’s lineage.
Left: The Gaia Mandala Mindfulness Sangha of Rasul, Rick, Elizabeth and me converged at Plum Village.
Right: My host, Charlotte Dufour at Les Marions with the Vase she stewards for Afghanistan
It was a respite from the storm here in the US, to dwell in the harmonious atmosphere of rural France, amidst the old stone villages, vineyards and wheatfields, where a certain quiet and deep peace permeates the land, seemingly interrupted only by the sound of church bells that ring out across the hills, bringing us back, as the sound of the bell does in the Plum Village tradition, to our “true selves”. I was able to slow down and return to my own “True Source”—reclaiming this dharma name I received from Thay when I joined the Order of Interbeing in Plum Village, the spiritual home of my root tradition back in the 1980s.
Smelling the roses was part of our pilgrimage into the sacred feminine. Candles lit to the Madonna and child.
Judith Tripp invoking a connection to the ancient stone circle where we made offerings.
Roses were blooming all over France, and the fragrance was intoxicating. One of the retreats we did at Les Marions, was with my Gaia Mandala sister and Earth Treasure Vase steward, Judith Tripp. On the hill above Charlotte’s center is an ancient stone circle where we gathered to make offerings and celebrate the sacred feminine. The holy Mother was with us in the land, in the roses, and in the songlines that stretch from Britain to Spain through the forests and pathways in France where pilgrims have walked for thousands of years.
Cynthia’s presentation at the SDG Solution Space in Geneva
I was deeply moved to be introduced by Charlotte to her circle of colleagues in Geneva, the hub of so many international NGOs all dedicated to humanitarian efforts for peace and healing on behalf of our global community. As the systems that have held things together around the world begin to unravel, this work is no longer stable and everyone is wondering how to find the way into a new operating system. I was honored to be able to speak to this and offer some new perspectives as we listen to Gaia calling to us now.
Rick Jansen joined us at Las Marions to co-lead a powerful retreat with 8 Earth Treasure Vases present in the circle along with their stewards, and an extended group of global healers from 9 countries. This retreat marked a powerful moment for me.
After 35 years and 93 ETVs since receiving this practice from Charok Rinpoche, I brought the last 3 ETVs from my altar to France to be dedicated. Of these, the last two second generation vases were dedicated to Hungary and Ukraine. The third ETV was the little vase I crafted myself at Ghost Ranch when we made the third generation of vases with Tewa elder, Marian Naranjo. This one was dedicated to being planted at Plum Village. These 3 joined the vase for Palestine with Aoife Franklyn, for Afghanistan with Charolotte Dufour and her Afghan co-steward, for Spain with Andrea Herrera and for the Andes with Rick Jansen. Each of these very powerful vases were fully received, blessed and filled with countless prayers and offerings as we invoked the entire mandala of locations and brought them into the global ETV family.
Left: Cynthia with one of the last vases she brought to France. Middle: Central altar with ETVs for
Palestine, Ukraine, Afghanistan, Hungary, Spain, Plum Village, the bowl for the Andes ETV, and Anne’s vase.
Right: the vase for Ukraine to be passed on to the monks of Taize. All the vases received Lakota prayer ties.
Anne Thomas with the vase she crafted. And at right, her vase in the center of the altar fully blessed!
Joining our retreat was a woman from Wales named Anne Thomas. Anne is an artist who paints mandalas and a ceremonialist who is deeply connected to nature but who had never encountered the practice of the ETVs. Nevertheless, Anne was guided to collect clay from the beach near her home and craft it into a clay vessel to receive offerings for the protection and healing of Mother Earth! A friend pointed her to my book and she attended the retreat, where she shyly brought forward the beautiful vase she had made. For me, having just passed on the last of the vases, this was like a spontaneously arising manifestation of my hope for the practice to continue— as if the collective field of the global mandala itself had birthed another vase to begin the next cycle of our practice! Of course, we welcomed this vase into our midst and blessed it too.
One evening, the group made a pilgrimage to Taize an ecumenical Christian monastery started after WW2 and dedicated to world peace. Every year the brothers there, host thousands of young people from around the world in their thriving community. Several of the brothers have been traveling to Ukraine regularly to offer their support for peace in that land. It is through this community that the ETV will make its way to Ukraine with Charlotte’s help. This vase along with all the other vases in the retreat came with us to Taize to be opened during the evening service of vespers when the entire congregation sings gorgeous hymns in multiple languages into the night.
The vase for Hungary requested by Melinda Varfi (who could not be at the retreat), had several interim stewards in our group—Carola Steinbauer from Germany and Martin Trimmel from Austria. They lovingly carried the vase to Taize and formed a deep bond with it. Carola, who was part of the Auschwitz vase burial, brought the vase to Germany after the retreat to be passed on to Melinda soon.
Andrea & Diana are pictured above holding the Spain ETV
Aoife Franklyn has written about the stunning onward journey of the Palestine ETV in this newsletter. Rick Jansen is now on his way to meet up with the Andes ETV which is already in South America with a member of the young stewards collective Rick has called together around that vase. When Andrea Herrera left France, she took her ETV to Transalquimia, the retreat center in Spain where we had planned to hold a retreat and where the vase is now in the hands of Diana Bacanu who is helping to steward the vase with Andrea! I left Les Marions and took the vase across France to Plum Village…
Left: Cynthia was warmly welcomed by Sister Chan Khong at Plum Village.
Right: Brother Phap Huu, the Abbot of the Upper Hamlet at Plum Village, kindly blessed the ETV to be planted there.
Scouting for a suitable location for the ETV, first with Rick and then with Brother Phap Lai, we found several. But standing in the field below the Buddha Hill where Thay’s ashes were spread, I noticed a grove of tall oak trees that called to me. There I discovered a circle of five trees with an open center to provide the perfect embrace for the little vase. Brother Phap Huu blessed the vase, and smiling, said, “Yes, that is a very good location, I know it well.”
We held two ceremonies with the vase on the deck outside of Thay’s hut. The vase was placed inside a humble little brown and yellow ceramic pot made by the monks of Taize. The lid was secured by handspun cotton threads offered by my dear friend Marcos, who had learned to spin at the Gandhi ashram in India, and with his wife Kalindi, brought that practice to the mountains of southern Mexico where they lived and started the weaving cooperative Khadi Oaxaca that provided the handspun, hand dyed fabrics that covered the corks of all the vases we made at Ghost Ranch. They live near Plum Village now and together we tied the skein of threads around the ETV in an endless knot then dripped brown sealing wax on top and stamped it with a compass rose.
Our group walked quietly through the woods to bury the vase and formed a circle in the oak trees. Brother Phap Lai rang the bell, and we chanted an invocation to Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion and sang the Gaia Mantra. My new friends, Moen from Palestine and Jacopo from the Happy Farm dug the hole. Finally, the vase was placed into a bed of rose petals I gathered all over France and planted firmly in the soil of that sacred land where peace is every step.
The ETV container tied & stamped & ready to be planted. Brother Phap Lai & friends stand by as the hole is dug
by Jacopo and Moen. Cynthia offered rose petals into the hole while Br. Phap Lai held the Vase.
The deed was done, a great fulfillment, a full circle and profound completion as the little vase of my heart found its true home—my gift to the mandala (and to myself!) to root and remember and receive the spiritual support from this beautiful place of peace on Earth. The many synchronicities that accompanied this journey demonstrated that the power of our collective intention is very alive. There was a certain grace guiding each step of the way—a clear sign of Gaia’s blessing as she receives our precious offerings into the Mandala. These are the little miracles and wonders that bring together the pieces we could never figure out how to accomplish on our own, but that lead to the fulfillment of our prayers.
I am home now, filled with awe and gratitude to everyone who held and blessed or made offerings into all the treasure vases on this journey of a lifetime. The Mother Vase still rests on my altar and the remaining vases in process are still going out through their stewards. Some of the clay from the Plum Village ETV location and the clay from New Mexico that formed the 3rd generation vases will go to Anne Thomas to craft another ETV. And perhaps more vases over time will come into the hands of Gaia Mandala Global Healing Community members who call for them as this circle of life-giving prayers for Earth healing and protection continues.
A la la ho! Isn’t it wonderful?
