The Spiral Path

My grandfather used to wake me with a song.

“I can’t get’m up, I can’t get’m up, I can’t get’m up in the morning!”
Goofy. Loud. Unapologetic.
And every time—like clockwork—I rose.

Each school day of my childhood, he made waking up more than survival.
It became an event. A joke. A ritual. A promise.
A small, daily resurrection.

He walked me to school each morning and met me each afternoon.
He turned a patch of city-owned lawn into a renegade garden—unauthorized, blooming with color and food and joy.

To me, he was a magician. A mountain.

One summer morning, I was six. We made our usual outlaw breakfast—fried bread and black coffee—then walked to the edge of the neighborhood.
He handed me a Styrofoam cup. I hoped for candy.
It held worms.

We walked to the river.
He asked for my courage.
I followed him onto the footbridge, afraid.

Then he opened the cup and said:
“This worm connects you to the fish. To the water. To the dirt. To yourself.”

And then:
“The stars are made of this stuff too. You and I might as well be stars. Did you know that?”

That was the day I learned the Earth is sacred.
That fear can be holy—if you move through it.
That ritual lives in worms, in bridges, in hands, in breath.
In anything you dare to touch with wonder.

That story is why we built The Spiral Path.

This year, Easter and Earth Day arrive together. The harmony of their truths will guide a ritual of movement and spirit.

Inside the sanctuary, five stations will invite you:
Begin. Grow. Break. Wait. Rise.

You’ll carry a seed.
You’ll shape it in clay.
You’ll place a broken thing into a shared bowl.
You’ll pause. You’ll plant. You’ll reflect.
You’ll take time. We’ll make space.

At Begin, you’ll receive what you’re called to carry.
At Grow, you’ll shape that call into form.
At Break, you’ll meet the truth—and what it costs.
At Wait, you’ll let rest become wisdom.
At Rise, you’ll plant what has been transformed—and let the plant do what it does.

This ritual is for you—
If you are raising children or tending elders.
If you’ve left Easter behind, or never found a way into it.
If Earth Day feels like celebration—or sorrow.
If you’re blooming. If you’re breaking.
If you’re not sure what to believe, but you long for something real.

Come.
Come if your spirit feels altered—by the news, by the pollen, by the ache or awe of spring’s sweet haze.
Come if you’ve ever been handed something strange and been told: this too is part of life.

Come if you’ve ever needed someone to say what my grandfather said that day—worm in hand, voice like the thunder I keep waiting to hear behind this cloudy afternoon sky:
“This connects you to the dirt. And the water. And yourself. The stars are made of this stuff too. You and I might as well be stars. Did you know that?”

Sunday, April 20
9am & 11am
First Universalist Church of Minneapolis
All ages welcome. Come as you are.

We’ll take the journey together.

—Glen Thomas Rideout
Director of Worship Arts Ministries