
This Wheel of Rocks
An Unexpected Spiritual Journey
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed

Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $20.25
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Sister Marya Grathwohl
About this listen
The memoir of a Catholic nun’s spiritual journey that explores the deep connections between faith and the natural world
Growing up in the Midwest, Judy Grathwohl never felt she belonged. “I belong out west,” she remembers telling her father. After joining the Sisters of St. Francis in the early 1960s and becoming Sister Marya, she came to realize that she craved a life beyond the traditional path of a Catholic nun. “Something other than dedicating my life to God was summoning me, some other life purpose,” she writes.
It took several years and several detours, but when Sister Marya eventually was assigned by her order to the Northwest, she felt an immediate connection to the place and to its Native people, the Crow and Northern Cheyenne. Little by little, she was invited to become part of their communities, to share their customs and rituals, and eventually was adopted into one of their families. She came to understand that the blending of Catholic teachings and Native traditions helped build within her a deeper respect for the Earth—this wheel of rocks—that she could not have built on her own.
In this intimate, revelatory memoir, Sister Marya recounts her own spiritual journey, her settling in Montana, how she—a Catholic nun from Ohio—came to be embraced by the Crow and Northern Cheyenne, and how their traditions prompted in her an expanding devotion to the land, its resources, and its connections to faith and God.
Honest and eye-opening, funny and heartfelt, This Wheel of Rocks shows how living a spiritual life committed to preserving nature and community can be both fulfilling and productive.
* This audiobook edition includes a downloadable PDF containing a list of additional gospel references mentioned in the book.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2023 Sister Marya Grathwohl (P)2023 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
-
Braiding Sweetgrass
- Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
- By: Robin Wall Kimmerer
- Narrated by: Robin Wall Kimmerer
- Length: 16 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science. As a Potawatomi woman, she learned from elders, family, and history that the Potawatomi, as well as a majority of other cultures indigenous to this land, consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers.
-
-
Finally, Words
- By Donovan P Malley on 06-30-19
-
Take Back the Magic
- Conversations with the Unseen World
- By: Perdita Finn
- Narrated by: Perdita Finn
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What if you could live in a world where the guidance of those who were gone was available, right at your very fingertips? It's possible, if we are open to it. Anyone can reclaim the forgotten guidance of the dead, and anyone can return to the realm of magic and miracles. In Take Back the Magic: Conversations with the Unseen World, author, spiritual teacher, and co-founder of The Way of the Rose Perdita Finn reveals that life is beginningless, love is endless, and those who have passed don’t truly go anywhere when they die.
-
-
Join the therapy session
- By Ingrid Kellas on 10-16-23
By: Perdita Finn
-
The Seven Storey Mountain
- By: Thomas Merton
- Narrated by: Sidney Lanier
- Length: 2 hrs and 33 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Seven Storey Mountain is the extraordinary spiritual testament of Thomas Merton (1915-1968), a man who experienced life to its fullest in the world before entering a Trappist monastery. By the end of his life, he had become one of the 20th century's best-known and beloved Christian voices. This autobiography deals...not with what happens to a man, but what happens inside his soul.
-
-
Letter to Audible
- By Victoria A. McCargar on 08-06-17
By: Thomas Merton
-
Love Is the Way
- Holding on to Hope in Troubling Times
- By: Bishop Michael Curry, Sara Grace
- Narrated by: Bishop Michael Curry
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Much of the world met Bishop Curry when he delivered his sermon on the redemptive power of love at the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at Windsor Castle. Here, he expands on his message of hope in an inspirational road map for living the way of love, illuminated with moving lessons from his own life. Through the prism of his faith, ancestry, and personal journey, Love Is the Way shows us how America came this far and, more important, how to go a whole lot further.
-
-
Hopeful and grateful
- By Amazon Customer on 10-11-20
By: Bishop Michael Curry, and others
-
Light When It Comes
- Trusting Joy, Facing Darkness, and Seeing God in Everything
- By: Chris Anderson
- Narrated by: Trevor Thompson
- Length: 4 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On finding joy and spiritual meaning in life's small moments. We all have moments of joy, moments that move us somehow, spiritual moments that we can't quite put a finger on. But then we rush on and soon forget. In this book Chris Anderson encourages us to remember and share such moments. What he writes will inspire listeners who are hurting, doubting, or searching to find wisdom and meaning in their lives.
-
-
God brings the light in all things
- By Daman on 07-11-17
By: Chris Anderson
-
River of Fire
- My Spiritual Journey
- By: Helen Prejean
- Narrated by: Helen Prejean
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sister Helen Prejean’s work as an activist nun, campaigning to educate Americans about the inhumanity of the death penalty, is known to millions worldwide. Less widely known is the evolution of her spiritual journey from praying for God to solve the world’s problems to engaging full-tilt in working to transform societal injustices. Sister Helen grew up in a well-off Baton Rouge family that still employed black servants.
-
-
Very inspiring
- By quiltbrain on 09-05-19
By: Helen Prejean
-
Braiding Sweetgrass
- Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
- By: Robin Wall Kimmerer
- Narrated by: Robin Wall Kimmerer
- Length: 16 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As a botanist and professor of plant ecology, Robin Wall Kimmerer has spent a career learning how to ask questions of nature using the tools of science. As a Potawatomi woman, she learned from elders, family, and history that the Potawatomi, as well as a majority of other cultures indigenous to this land, consider plants and animals to be our oldest teachers.
-
-
Finally, Words
- By Donovan P Malley on 06-30-19
-
Take Back the Magic
- Conversations with the Unseen World
- By: Perdita Finn
- Narrated by: Perdita Finn
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What if you could live in a world where the guidance of those who were gone was available, right at your very fingertips? It's possible, if we are open to it. Anyone can reclaim the forgotten guidance of the dead, and anyone can return to the realm of magic and miracles. In Take Back the Magic: Conversations with the Unseen World, author, spiritual teacher, and co-founder of The Way of the Rose Perdita Finn reveals that life is beginningless, love is endless, and those who have passed don’t truly go anywhere when they die.
-
-
Join the therapy session
- By Ingrid Kellas on 10-16-23
By: Perdita Finn
-
The Seven Storey Mountain
- By: Thomas Merton
- Narrated by: Sidney Lanier
- Length: 2 hrs and 33 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Seven Storey Mountain is the extraordinary spiritual testament of Thomas Merton (1915-1968), a man who experienced life to its fullest in the world before entering a Trappist monastery. By the end of his life, he had become one of the 20th century's best-known and beloved Christian voices. This autobiography deals...not with what happens to a man, but what happens inside his soul.
-
-
Letter to Audible
- By Victoria A. McCargar on 08-06-17
By: Thomas Merton
-
Love Is the Way
- Holding on to Hope in Troubling Times
- By: Bishop Michael Curry, Sara Grace
- Narrated by: Bishop Michael Curry
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Much of the world met Bishop Curry when he delivered his sermon on the redemptive power of love at the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at Windsor Castle. Here, he expands on his message of hope in an inspirational road map for living the way of love, illuminated with moving lessons from his own life. Through the prism of his faith, ancestry, and personal journey, Love Is the Way shows us how America came this far and, more important, how to go a whole lot further.
-
-
Hopeful and grateful
- By Amazon Customer on 10-11-20
By: Bishop Michael Curry, and others
-
Light When It Comes
- Trusting Joy, Facing Darkness, and Seeing God in Everything
- By: Chris Anderson
- Narrated by: Trevor Thompson
- Length: 4 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On finding joy and spiritual meaning in life's small moments. We all have moments of joy, moments that move us somehow, spiritual moments that we can't quite put a finger on. But then we rush on and soon forget. In this book Chris Anderson encourages us to remember and share such moments. What he writes will inspire listeners who are hurting, doubting, or searching to find wisdom and meaning in their lives.
-
-
God brings the light in all things
- By Daman on 07-11-17
By: Chris Anderson
-
River of Fire
- My Spiritual Journey
- By: Helen Prejean
- Narrated by: Helen Prejean
- Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sister Helen Prejean’s work as an activist nun, campaigning to educate Americans about the inhumanity of the death penalty, is known to millions worldwide. Less widely known is the evolution of her spiritual journey from praying for God to solve the world’s problems to engaging full-tilt in working to transform societal injustices. Sister Helen grew up in a well-off Baton Rouge family that still employed black servants.
-
-
Very inspiring
- By quiltbrain on 09-05-19
By: Helen Prejean
-
The Lifegiving Home
- Creating a Place of Belonging and Becoming
- By: Sally Clarkson, Sarah Clarkson
- Narrated by: Donna Postel
- Length: 11 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Does your home sometimes feel like just a place to eat, sleep, and change clothes on the way to the next activity? Do you long for "home" to mean more than a place where you stash your stuff? Wouldn't you love it to become a haven of warmth, rest, and joy...the one place where you and your family can't wait to be? There is good news waiting for you in The Lifegiving Home. Every day of your family's life can be as special and important to you as it already is to God.
-
-
This book left me feeling completely inadequate
- By Elizabeth higley on 04-01-18
By: Sally Clarkson, and others
-
A Burning in My Bones
- The Authorized Biography of Eugene H. Peterson, Translator of The Message
- By: Winn Collier
- Narrated by: Richard Poe
- Length: 9 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Encounter the multifaceted life of one of the most influential and creative pastors of the past half century with unforgettable stories of Eugene’s lifelong devotion to his craft and love of language, the influences and experiences that shaped his unquenchable faith, the inspiration for his decision to translate The Message, and his success and struggles as a pastor, husband, and father. Author Winn Collier was given exclusive access to Eugene and his materials for the production of this landmark work.
-
-
Thank you
- By Beth Spafford on 04-02-21
By: Winn Collier
-
The Journey Home
- By: Radhanath Swami
- Narrated by: Radhanath Swami
- Length: 19 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Within this extraordinary memoir, Radhanath Swami weaves a colorful tapestry of adventure, mysticism, and love. Listeners follow Richard Slavin from the suburbs of Chicago to the caves of the Himalayas as he transforms from young seeker to renowned spiritual guide. The Journey Home is an intimate account of the steps to self-awareness and also a penetrating glimpse into the heart of mystic traditions and the challenges that all souls must face on the road to inner harmony and a union with the Divine.
-
-
Excellent
- By Julia on 01-28-21
By: Radhanath Swami
-
Saving God from Religion
- A Minister's Search for Faith in a Skeptical Age
- By: Robin R. Meyers
- Narrated by: Robin R. Meyers
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this groundbreaking, inspiring book, Robin R. Meyers, the senior minister of Oklahoma City’s Mayflower Congregational United Church of Christ, shows how listeners can move from a theology of obedience to one of consequence. He argues that we need to stop seeing our actions as a means for pleasing a distant God and rediscover how God has empowered us to care for ourselves and the world. Drawing on stories from his decades of active ministry, Meyers captures how the struggles of ordinary people hint at how we can approach faith as a radical act of trust in a God who is all around us.
-
-
The logical and profound merging of God and quantum entanglement.
- By R. Cooke on 01-04-25
By: Robin R. Meyers
-
The Long Loneliness
- The Autobiography of the Legendary Catholic Social Activist
- By: Dorothy Day
- Narrated by: Nancy Linari
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Dorothy Day died in 1980, the New York Times eulogized her as “a nonviolent social radical of luminous personality...founder of the Catholic Worker Movement and leader for more than 50 years in numerous battles of social justice.” Here, in her own words, this remarkable woman tells of her early life as a young journalist in the crucible of Greenwich Village political and literary thought in the 1920s, and of her momentous conversion to Catholicism that meant the end of a Bohemian lifestyle and common-law marriage.
-
-
Required reading for any who work in poverty
- By marguerite allred-crawford on 11-16-20
By: Dorothy Day
-
Tales of Wonder
- By: Huston Smith
- Narrated by: Michael McConnohie
- Length: 5 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Huston Smith, the man who brought the world's religions to the West, was born almost a century ago to missionary parents in China during the perilous rise of the Communist Party. Smith's lifelong spiritual journey brought him face-to-face with many of the people who shaped the 20th century. His extraordinary travels around the globe have taken him to the world's holiest places, where he has practiced religion with many of the great spiritual leaders of our time.
-
-
Takes of wonder for sure, by a wonderful man.
- By Dr. D. Brian Austin on 04-03-19
By: Huston Smith
-
Backpacking with the Saints
- Wilderness Hiking as Spiritual Practice
- By: Belden C. Lane
- Narrated by: Jim Denison
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Carrying only basic camping equipment and a collection of the world's great spiritual writings, Belden C. Lane embarks on solitary spiritual treks through the Ozarks and across the American Southwest. For companions, he has only such teachers as Rumi, John of the Cross, Hildegard of Bingen, Dag Hammarskjöld, and Thomas Merton, and as he walks, he engages their writings with the natural wonders he encounters, demonstrating how being alone in the wild opens a rare view onto one's interior landscape, and how the saints' writings reveal the divine in nature.
-
-
Great Book
- By Andrew on 06-04-20
By: Belden C. Lane
-
Becoming Elisabeth Elliot
- By: Ellen Vaughn
- Narrated by: Connie Shabshab
- Length: 12 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Elisabeth Elliot was a young missionary in Ecuador when members of a violent Amazonian tribe savagely speared her husband, Jim, and his four colleagues. Incredibly, prayerfully, Elisabeth took her toddler daughter, snakebite kit, Bible, and journal...and lived in the jungle with the stone-age people who killed her husband. In this authorized biography, Ellen Vaughn uses Elisabeth’s private, unpublished journals, and candid interviews with her family and friends, to paint the adventures and misadventures God used to shape one of the most influential women in modern church history.
-
-
Great book!
- By Dove on 09-27-20
By: Ellen Vaughn
-
Native
- Identity, Belonging and Rediscovering God
- By: Kaitlin B. Curtice
- Narrated by: Kaitlin B. Curtice
- Length: 5 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Native is about identity, soul-searching, and the never-ending journey of finding ourselves and finding God. As both a citizen of the Potawatomi Nation and a Christian, Kaitlin Curtice offers a unique perspective on these topics. In this book, she shows how reconnecting with her Potawatomi identity both informs and challenges her faith.
-
-
Really intense
- By Perla Moreno on 09-07-20
-
To Speak for the Trees
- My Life's Journey from Ancient Celtic Wisdom to a Healing Vision of the Forest
- By: Diana Beresford-Kroeger
- Narrated by: Diana Beresford-Kroeger
- Length: 8 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Canadian botanist, biochemist, and visionary Diana Beresford-Kroeger's startling insights into the hidden life of trees have already sparked a quiet revolution in how we understand our relationship to forests. Now, in a captivating account of how her life led her to these illuminating and crucial ideas, she shows us how forests can not only heal us but save the planet.
-
-
Deeply moving!
- By Anne Milligan on 07-27-20
-
Autobiography of a Modern Prophet
- By: Harold Klemp
- Narrated by: Rich Miller
- Length: 13 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It's 1970. A dark Wisconsin night. A once-shy farm boy, now in his 20s, stands on a bridge over a river. He's left the farm, studied for the clergy, and done a stint in the air force. He's a proofreader now. He's seen faraway places, but tonight he's in Wisconsin overlooking the dark water. He's about to see the face of God, to become a God-realized man. From this momentous turning point, Harold Klemp's life would never be the same.
-
-
Transforming!
- By Mrs. Tammy M. Attama on 08-17-20
By: Harold Klemp
-
The Road from Coorain
- By: Jill Ker Conway
- Narrated by: Barbara Caruso
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the 1930s, Jill Ker's parents bought a sheep farm on the western plains of New South Wales. In 1944, they lost nearly everything when a drought hit. Forced to leave Coorain, 11-year-old Jill and her mother settled in Sydney where Jill struggled to find a place for herself among Sydney's elite. Her story, both a chronicle of life in the Australian outback and the odyssey of a brilliant woman fighting the constraints of her time, offers a loving view of Australia.
-
-
So glad I (finally) listened to my aunt
- By T. on 07-12-13
By: Jill Ker Conway
Critic reviews
“I predict that the shining knowledge and insights inside these pages will blow your soul wide awake in ways you can scarcely imagine. Woven into the lyric prose are forty years of learning among Native Americans, Earth activists, cosmologists and scientists, spiritual seekers, and Earth herself—even her rocks on mountains that seem far too harsh for life.” —Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking
“Sister Marya’s memoir is as compelling as a novel, bringing the reader into the lives of Native people who helped her transform her understanding of our relationship with Earth. The prose is clear and lovely, and the voice is instantly trustworthy.” —Denny LeBoeuf, Director, ACLU John Adams Project
“This is one of the most moving books I have read in a long time. Sister Marya invites us into her fascinating spiritual journey. With engaging stories she shares her questions and struggles as well as her emerging insights and integration. This is a life-changing book to be savored for years to come.” —Mary Evelyn Tucker, Yale University, co-author of Journey of the Universe
Connection between humans and earth.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Right there. Front and center!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.