He had worked with his hands,
in the same place where his ancestors had wielded
pickaxes, pliers, ‘rivelaines’ and spades..
Jules Verne, 1877
They soon caught the sounds of the pick [rivelaine];
the approach work began
a gallery was being opened.
Émile Zola, 1906
A ‘rivelaine’ is a thin, two-pointed pickaxe used in the past by miners and shaft diggers. This tool was used to draw horizontal lines in the rock, marking out the grooves for cutting the stones. The rivelaine was therefore essential for unearthing well-formed blocks of stone more easily from the raw material offered by the mine. It brought to light what was already potentially present in the resources of the earth.
As the name of the estate that provides a home to the Fellowship of Saint Michael Archangel, it is also an apt symbol of the vision and practical meaning of the project fostered by its members: to offer creative tools to delineate, signify and reveal the constitutive elements and sources of living water that help create a sustainable future for our planet and humanity.
The Fellowship was created in 2023 by a small group of monks and their friends. Under civil law, it is organised in the form of a non-profit association (ASBL), known as the ‘Monastic Association for Encounter and Dialogue’. Its statutory aim is to develop and maintain a space where contemplative life and disinterested hospitality enter into dialogue with the spiritual quest of people today.
Rooted in the monastic traditions of the Christian East and West, the members of the Fellowship share a spirituality based on unconditional respect for the value and inviolability of each person and a simultaneous awareness of a deep connection with our natural environment. This enables a beautiful synergy between people from very different fields - such as culture, science, spirituality, social policy and business - coming together in a unique place to exchange views on the pressing issues of our time.
In establishing its activities on the La Rivelaine estate, the Fellowship‘s main vocation is not to be a new platform for intellectual debate or critical reflection, however important that engagement may be. Above all, it aims to create a living space where human talents, ideas and senses - physical, intellectual and spiritual - are invited to participate, in a spirit of solidarity with the rest of creation. This makes it possible to go beyond the usual psychological or socio-political approaches to today's challenges: other, often unexplored dimensions of what it can mean to be truly human in a complex and rapidly changing world can be addressed and integrated.
In order to facilitate the implementation of this vision, the Fellowship wishes to offer a training programme through a wide range of activities. The name chosen for this programme is Academia Sensuum, (Academy of the Senses), indicating the integral exploration of the senses in the two complementary meanings of this term. On the one hand, the emphasis will be on educating the human senses belonging to body and soul. On the other, the Academy aims to provide a space for the search for existential meaning.
The main economic activity supporting the daily lives of the Fellowship's resident members is the production and marketing of incense and related products under the trade name Insensum. This activity is organised in the form of a non-profit association called ‘Incense & Fragrance’.
Fellowship of St. Michael Archangel
Monastic Association for Encounter and Dialogue ASBL
Rue Rivelaine 42/8
1428 Lillois
Email: info@saintmichaelsfellowship.org
BTW: BE 0791.871.772
IBAN: BE10 9734 5809 8904