The Braided River

The Granite Cloister is offered as a vessel within which to deepen and expand your trail experience by undertaking a circling journey of contemplative footsteps over a dedicated thirteen-month period.

The Cloister is open only to trail travellers who have completed their Soitlâ footsteps and therefore all thirteen moons of the trail, and who have maintained an ongoing connection with the Soitlâ clan community. Please do not select this option unless this applies to your journey. 

You undertake to travel the entire route of the Granite Cloister each month for thirteen months. You will enter through the Threshold and complete each cycle in the Gathering Place. In between you will be working with thirteen stone mothers, who sit as waymarks along the route and anchor your footsteps into the land. It is important to build a rhythm into your journey in order to strengthen your cloistering experience.

Each month you will return to the same stone mothers in the cloister, and to their pages in the cloister online vessel where you will offer the shards of granite prayer that you have created during your pilgrimage. Eventually there will be thirteen prayer shards for each of the stone mothers, forming a garland of 169 ritual prayer shards.

The Granite Cloister is walked in solitude and silence. Your ritual offerings into the online vessel will also be offered in silence, without responses from other travellers. They will become an unfurling record of your granite stone prayers. The Gathering Place is where you may informally share words about your journey with your cloister sisters.

The written content that gives guidance for the stone shrines is dynamic; it will shift and grow as this journey unfurls. You will be working with the mythic stories and peat prayers of the mûkthno wailî, ancestral marsh women, so the Book of Hag (Peat) is an essential reading resource for this journey. The art portfolio Through the Heron’s Marsh is a beneficial addition but not essential.

This journey is being walked on the land by Carolyn each month from January 2026 onwards, with the first cloister cycle being completed in February 2027. But it does not matter when you begin your cloistering journey.

Your membership of the Soitlâ Clan continues when you step into the Cloister. If you are already paying the additional Soitlâ Clan subscription when you enter the Cloister this will be suspended. After completing your thirteen month period you can have full access to the Cloister journey for as long as you wish and your Soitlâ Clan subscription will apply again. You will be able to access your other trail journeys and all Braided River ingredients throughout.

After you have completed your kuti payment or subscription to enter the Cloister, you will be given access manually by our kindling team. You will receive a Braided River email to welcome you and confirm that you may now enter. You need to be logged into your trail account in order to access your Cloister journey.

KUTI 22 is for the 13 month subscription. There is only one payment amount available by monthly subscription. The options of KUTI 21 (full payment) and KUTI 23 (bursary full payment) are also available. Please email if you wish to request the bursary code for the Cloister Journey. Please contact us if you have any questions about this journey.