Charged with Spirit Work
by Nathalie Roy
How do gladiolas blossom in the face of weeks of sweltering heat? With siren sounds of the insect world in my ear, this dusty mosquito screen claims my morning attentiveness. Beyond the dappled light I hear Stephen, Dustin and friends hewing logs with retempered axes. The trees were felled, limbed and stacked for the arrival of these good people. We’re now days into the labours, and at the long picnic table, in the light of the setting sun there’s laughter. Some look up, tired and sore and marvel out loud: ‘Who still does this?’.
The sugar shack that burnt down on the coldest night of January is the occasion of our companionship. All of the people assembled here sat in the great hall on many occasions over the years, as they were scholars of the Orphan Wisdom School. They came based on a few words of invitation:
The learning and the teaching will be part history, all culture, mostly spirit, hugely ancestral, very local, ultimately practicable and hand made, each time about living, working and dying, purposefully delivered and achieved together in the belief that the rudiments of being a true, life serving village person lay waiting for water and light in all of us. If you stay with it long enough your hands will know as much as you will, and even your consternation will be articulate.
The reasons people came were not always the reasons they stayed, nor the reasons for their return.
Stephen’s genius unveils purpose and instills a curiosity. Words, and the way they are strung together, their emphasis brings marvel and a companionship, and contemplation to my days. At times they bring reason, sometimes a peace of mind, and without doubt, good work.
“…your leaving was one of the best things…” My mother went on to say as she uprighted herself in the hospital bed.
“My leaving was one of the best things for you?” I queried, I gently moved her leg and sat down with her.
“No, your leaving was one of the best acts for you at that time in your life and look now, good for others too.” She elaborated. I so miss her French accent, her voice.
My mother, I think, may have been pointing to the kind of marvel it was for her to hear of my life away, among strangers for a long period of time. I would return with stories and ‘a stranger’s way’.
It is an honour to serve and my certain kind of hospitality has been bolstered by Stephen’s words. A sense of worthiness and merit has emerged.
And to become alert to an expanse of perspective is at times unsettling, and unwelcome.
Assuming the position of a person who is needed, as a person of some consequence, and finding ways to translate that is, I think, the kind of spirit work I’ve heard Stephen speak to. For me, I realize it comes, in part, in the form of scullery work. The Orphan Wisdom banquet hall and The Guesthouse are the places where I lean into these labours of love.
In the years since we opened the doors to The Orphan Wisdom School, I’ve been blessed to have met so many good people, all charged with articulate consternation and service.
And there were so many more people on The School waitlist who we simply could not welcome before the doors closed. I’ve had you in mind, all this time.
And so for now, the doors to the Guesthouse remain open. I will continue to host the occasional weekend singing session, painter & writers classes, and we’ll soon be in a position to announce the date of our next Echos of an Orphan Wisdom Boreal Session 2026.
We just waved off the good folk who came to partake in the ‘Boreal Sessions 2025’. They delved into the curating labours of transcribing a week-long talk Stephen once offered called ‘Elderhood in a Time of Trouble’.
On September 15th, 2025 we’ll be opening the The Scriptorium Library ~ Echos of an Orphan Wisdom, a treasure trove of words from a thinking man who cares deeply about the grey news that has become our corner of this beautiful world, so that children can one day soon be born into to a real, detailed, laboured over Better Day that we ourselves are now unlikely to see.
The Scriptorium requires no previous experience with the living, the dying or the dead, no particular employment, religion, educational standard or way of life. It is open to every shape, persuasion, style, language and hue of person with a heart inclined for opening and learning something deep, alive, human, urgent and mandatory.
As was so with The Orphan Wisdom School, that remains at the heart of The Scriptorium.
