The Way of the Rose

A former Zen Buddhist monk and a lapsed Catholic explore the rosary as a profound meditation tool for people of all faiths to connect us to the Divine Feminine.

The rosary is a string of fifty-nine beads that when prayed on serve to honor Mary in the Catholic Church. But Clark Strand, a serious student of religion and a former editor at Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, didn't even consider himself a Christian. He'd been a Zen monk for twenty years and had been writing about Buddhism all his life. But one day, Strand chanced upon a rosary at a flea market that seemed to speak to him. He discovered that it was more powerful as a meditation tool than any practice he'd experienced throughout his years as a Buddhist monk. He and his wife Perdita Finn, a lapsed Catholic herself, began a Rosary fellowship in Woodstock that deepened his understanding of the practice, particularly in its powerful connection to the Divine Feminine.

Most people who pray the rosary are Catholic. And yet, as Strand and Finn tell us, the rosary--which comes from the word "rose"--predates Christianity. In fact, the ritual of praying over beads is found almost every religion and culture, from Greek worry beads to Muslim and Buddhist prayer beads. The Way of the Rose traces the hidden history of the rosary and explains how praying over the beads can be used as a contemporary spiritual practice to connect us to its original use as an ancient, pan-cultural meditative tool that unites the practitioner with the Divine Feminine.