Welcome. I’m Sande Ramage and this is where I tangle with and write about spirituality one word at a time. I do it because the exploration of the ‘more’ enchanted me as a small child and is quite possibly the purpose of my existence. It’s an ongoing tango.
At two weeks old, I was adopted into what I now understand was a fundamentalist Baptist home where the Bible was seen as the inerrant word of God. Those two major life events, being born into the void and separated from the source of life to be raised in a dogmatic religious framework provided the purpose of my life without me even realising it. Woven throughout was a deep engagement and love of story, particularly those found in Jewish scriptures and the world of Narnia, both complex and multi-faceted environments that enriched me.
Creative imagery matters to me, which may be why the Crone emerged as I started to age. She appears in many cultures and mythologies, often seen as a wise woman but can be feared when she appears as the Witch or Hag. In the triple goddess imagery, she represents the last aspect of life alongside the mother and maiden. Integrating the Crone archetype has been valuable as I try to recover my innate spiritual sensibilities and to open up the possibilities of spirituality beyond institutional religion.
Christianity has not always been kind to the Crone and I’ve slowly come to recognise that the growth of her in me is part of reclaiming my own spirituality, without wanting to diminish the enormous contribution the Christian tradition has had in my life.
My day job is as the Spiritual Care Coordinator at MidCentral DHB in Palmerston North, New Zealand. My role is to ensure that compassionate, spiritual care is embedded into the health system and that we develop a vibrant, professional service that meets the needs of a changing market.
This is a diverse role moving from offering one on one listening to patients, families, whanau and staff, through working on health task groups, to teaching about spirituality and the art of compassionate presence. Alongside that I love speaking about spirituality, offering soulful supervision or spiritual direction and facilitating reflective practice groups.
All of this, along with my previous experience in health promotion, and public health, ordination as an Anglican priest and then chaplain in education and the military offers rich background for exploration of the ‘more’. So too does being an ordinary human being loved by family, friends and Kali the Labrador, along with exploring my dreams through a Jungian lens, reading historical fiction about Tudor times and dark crime novels. I love those Scandinavian writers!
Thanks for dropping by….
sande.ramage@gmail.com