The Reverend Jennifer DeBusk Alviar
Twenty years ago in my early 30s, I embarked on a call to ministry as an interfaith religious leader. My work weaves together story, sensory awareness, spiritual practice, and the quiet wisdom of the more‑than‑human world. Through Earth mandalas, guided wanderings, and community ritual, I invite people into a slower, more spacious way of being — one rooted in reciprocity, reverence, and the sacred cycles of the Holy Wild.
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My path has been shaped by both wound and wonder. As a child, I survived a life‑threatening brain hemorrhage that changed the way I accessed language.
Words no longer came from my mind alone — they emerged through movement, touch, and relationship with the natural world. Over time, this embodied way of knowing became my greatest teacher. It taught me to listen differently. To perceive differently. To trust the quiet, intuitive threads that lead us home. |
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Earth Mandala Ministry Emergence
My Earth Mandala Ministry was born through my own experience befriending impermanence with my mother, Ann DeBusk. My mother has always been an artist of the living world — a gardener, a lover of color, a woman who sees beauty in the smallest details of leaf and blossom. As she grows older and her body changes through illness and fragility, I watch her wrestle with the tension between her vibrant spirit and her shifting physical limits. It is a tender, painful, holy thing to witness.
In the summer of 2021, my then 81-year-old mother invited our family on a river safari in Montana thanks to her leadership with a conservation program called American Prairie. During that trip, the river taught me something I needed to remember -- forms change, yet one’s enduring essence and spirit remain constant.
Fast forward five years later. My mother is nearing 86 years old. Her breast cancer has returned after seven years in remission. This, along with a few falls that have limited her mobility. Her spirit is still vibrant. But her body is more fragile. She struggles to reconcile her identity as a community leader and changemaker within a changed body.
Inspired by the teachings of the river and my love for my dear mother, I gathered a basket of natural materials — petals, leaves, seedpods, small treasures offered freely by the land — and invited my mother to create an Earth mandala with me. She arranged each piece with the same artistry she once brought to her garden beds. Her hands moved slowly, intentionally, reverently. In that moment, I saw her essence shining through her changing form. I saw her spirit alive in the colors she chose, the symmetry she shaped, the tenderness she offered the Earth.
That mandala became the origin point of my Earth mandala ministry — a practice born from love, lineage, and the desire to honor what is fleeting without losing what is eternal. My mother taught me that beauty does not disappear when its form shifts. It simply finds a new way to speak.
Since then, I have leaned on this practice to process many emotions — grief over the state of the world with a peace mandala, celebrate the threshold crossings and changing of seasons, and to process my own belonging as part of a larger ecosystem.
Inspired by the teachings of the river and my love for my dear mother, I gathered a basket of natural materials — petals, leaves, seedpods, small treasures offered freely by the land — and invited my mother to create an Earth mandala with me. She arranged each piece with the same artistry she once brought to her garden beds. Her hands moved slowly, intentionally, reverently. In that moment, I saw her essence shining through her changing form. I saw her spirit alive in the colors she chose, the symmetry she shaped, the tenderness she offered the Earth.
That mandala became the origin point of my Earth mandala ministry — a practice born from love, lineage, and the desire to honor what is fleeting without losing what is eternal. My mother taught me that beauty does not disappear when its form shifts. It simply finds a new way to speak.
Since then, I have leaned on this practice to process many emotions — grief over the state of the world with a peace mandala, celebrate the threshold crossings and changing of seasons, and to process my own belonging as part of a larger ecosystem.
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Sharing this practice with others
Because this practice was so impactful for me, I wanted to bring it to my community. On January 18, 2026, in honor of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 's birthday, I designed and facilitated a peace mandala ritual. I invited congregants from my Unitarian Universalist faith tradition to engage in this ceremony. Each person selected a natural item from the communal basket. Then they processed to the altar adding their own offerings to the peace mandala.
Our collective presence helped us feel less alone. Together, we found a shared rhythm in this creative mandala practice that honored human pain and suffering. Together, we cultivated a grace-filled balm to nurture greater healing and wholeness.
My ministry has blossomed from there. I am honored to offer this practice to various congregations and organizations, both online and in person.
Our collective presence helped us feel less alone. Together, we found a shared rhythm in this creative mandala practice that honored human pain and suffering. Together, we cultivated a grace-filled balm to nurture greater healing and wholeness.
My ministry has blossomed from there. I am honored to offer this practice to various congregations and organizations, both online and in person.
Below is a sample of an online practice given as part of Wild Weavings with the Center for Wild Spirituality.