I found this incredibly beautiful poem this morning after my meditation in the Earth Prayers book.

Tent tethered among jackpine and blue-bells.
Lacewings rise from rock incubators.
Wild geese flying north.
And I can’t remember who I’m supposed to be.

I want to learn how to purr. Abandon
myself, have mistresses in maidenhair
fern, own no tomorrow nor yesterday:
a blank shimmering space forward and
back. I want to think with my belly.
I want to name all the stars animals
flowers birds rocks in order to forget
them, start over again. I want to
wear the seasons, harlequin, become
ancient and etched by weather. I
want to be snow pulse, ruminating
ungulate, pebble at the bottom of the
abyss, candle burning darkness rather
than flame. I want to peer at things
shameless, observe the unfastening,
that stripping of shape by dusk.
I want to sit in the meadow a rotten
stump pungent with slimemold, home
for pupæ and grubs, concentric rings
collapsing into the passacaglia of
time. I want to crawl inside someone
and hibernate one entire night with
no clocks to wake me, thighs fragrant
loam. I want to melt. I want to swim
naked with an otter. I want to turn
insideout, exchange nuclei with the
Sun. Toward the mythic kingdom of
summer I want to make blind motion,
using my ribs as a raft, following
the spiders as they set sail on their
tasselled shining silk. Sometimes
even a single feather’s enough
to fly.

Robert MacLean, in Earth Prayers, p.26-7

Kira Kull read this to us during a Zoom event and I was deeply moved and wanted to share it with all of you.

Rainforest

By Kira Gayatri Kull

Dedicated to Bayna-Lehkiem El-Amin

If this world were a forest,
I’d be one tiny white mushroom at (almost) the top of the canopy
Who’s been given enough sun and the right amount of rain
With just enough sight to know my height
And see the shade cast down from those above.
Here’s a little of what I learned and I promise it’s all with love.
At what point do we forget we’re all just creatures in this forest?
Surrounded by many others,
All deserving of life, but born into different worlds.
The soft moss, baby beetles, large ferns, and flying spiders
Each sip the same air and suffer when fire flares.
And when one species is at risk,
Our delicate ecosystem begins to crumble
Now too many beetles, suddenly receding moss,
Everyone suffers the domino effect of this loss.
If the health of the whole, and therefore each individual group,
Is dependent on the rest,
How is it ok that I have to curate my clothes for safety, let alone success?
And if I choose ‘wrong’ it becomes my fault for being harassed,
My fault for lesser pay,
My fault for choices that were never designed to go my way.
Now let me be clear: I’m privileged, too.
My skin works like opal magic and for years I didn’t know.
I thought cuz I was nice and smiled and shed a tear they’d say,
“Just get home safe” and “You have nothing to fear.”
Then I came here, to New York City:
Dense old-growth canopy, rich with diversity.

Suddenly in high quality I see
The way my browner friends come into negative contact with
authority.
It’s not fair I won’t get caught,
Not fair I can walk away
Not fair I’m the one presumed innocent
When, for the same,
My friend with kinky hair gets locked away.
So while the catcalls for wearing nice clothes, tight clothes,
(because I have to so I fit in at work with the corporate bros)
and the typecasting as ‘smart’ (for my glasses) or ‘butch’ (for my size)
won’t let me show my range unless I start to heavily exercise.
While those opposing standards pain me,
Near impossible to compromise without compromising me,
The women and people of color who know more, do more,
Even the ones who earn more, but are seen as less
Will remain more likely to be put under arrest.
Yes. This forest is under duress.
And we have to untangle our ancestors’ mess.
It can’t be ignored any longer,
Cuz if we don’t put this raging fire out,
There will be nothing left but ash for us to talk about.
Unless.
We start listening, learning, and acting through our love
Begin to support the youngest trees and lift each other up
Create irrigation systems of peace, so everyone can fill their cup.
Because out there in the forest pines grow right next to oaks
and it doesn’t matter at all what color fall provokes.

This was just posted in Rev. John Mabry’s online journal “Covid Tales” which I highly recommend. As I read this my heart burst open with recognition of a Divine message. I hope it touches you as well.

“Corona Corona” by Susan McCaslin

What kind of crown bears death?
What kind of queen hefts quarantine?
Parasitic in a liminal zone,
you are a spikey shell
unaware of the damage wreaked.
Our economies forged dark streams,
pathways for your kind of havoc.
We check our devices,
listen to the newscasts,
watch our Netflicks flicker,
hunker in the void
co-avoiding physical contact,
incarnate and encapsulated
dreaming new modes of being

Dreaming new modes of being
I wonder why I’m addressing you.
You’re just one of many sub-streams –
SARS, Spanish flu, Bubonic Plague.
We sit with storytellers, re-configure
Boccaccio’s Decameron, clutch Julian of Norwich’s
Revelations of Divine Love, ponder Dicken’s
“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times,”
self-isolate with Camus’ The Plague
knowing nothing’s new under the sun.
Stranded in para-doxology, we give thanks for
this contemplative pause
from compulsory progress, Gaia’s chance
to take a breath as the wild creatures return.

Taking a breath as the wild creatures return,
we peer through the global membrane,
ears cupped to a hermit thrush’s spiraling song
held in the arc of a great blue heron’s flight.
When poems interweave
with light and dark they sing, stranded
between lament and praise
thanksgiving and trembling,
our vast unknowing graced by love,
small acts of compassion,
heartwork of the justice imagination,
prayers for collective transfiguration.
Can we uncrown ourselves as lords of creation,
since heavy crowns bear death – not regeneration?

“Corona Corona” first appeared on the online blog of Lesley-Anne Evans: https://buddybreathing.wordpress.com/2020/04/26/napomo-poetry-party-

It appeared subsequently in Dialogue Magazine (Nanaimo, British Columbia) and Sage-ing magazine (Kelowna, BC)

With thanks to Tarana for posting this on FB. May it be so.

May I become at all times, both now and forever
A protector for those without protection
A guide for those who have lost their way
A ship for those with oceans to cross
A bridge for those with rivers to cross
A sanctuary for those in danger
A lamp for those without light
A place of refuge for those who lack shelter
And a servant to all in need.”

~Shantideva, 8th century Buddhist monk

I just wanted to share this lovely quote from Alexia Allen of Hawthorn farm. She puts out a blog that is always entertaining and profound in its earth-based wisdom and loving grace.

“You can tell our hemisphere is tilting away from the sun. It shows in the yellowing alder leaves, the slant of the light, the shifted constellations. You can tell by the smells, by the steam from the compost pile on a cool morning, by the pumpkins swelling on the vine. Spring blossoms seem so long ago. Late summer is filled with sweet wistfulness. It’s the season of blackberries on vanilla ice cream, the season of knowing that summer will end. No one ever knows the whole future. We all muddle towards it, because we’re all human. The best we can do is trust each moment and ourselves, and absorb the beauty around us whenever we need it. May you breathe deeply and peacefully as you bask in golden sunlight.”

In this beautiful meditation practice from Fr. Richard Rohr’s blog we invoke the power and presence of Mary Magdalene to integrate the feminine and masculine within.

Practice: Bride and Beloved

Today’s contemplative practice is inspired by the life of Mary Magdalene and her role as an icon and archetype for the full partnership of women in the divine. Psychotherapist Joan Norton offers a meditation in which we can all participate.

I’m grateful for the stories of Mary Magdalene because she fully lived a woman’s life of love and relationship, while also being a source of special spiritual knowledge. In her we find guidance for both the inner life of the spirit and the outer life of love. That has always been the role of the feminine face of God. I’m grateful for the pathways to self-knowledge that Mary Magdalene’s stories provide. . . .

Forever we have been told to seek the Kingdom within. Now . . . we seek to understand the feminine energy of God, which we can call the “Queendom within.” Together they are a whole known as the Divine. . . .

She Brings Goodness upon the Land

Close your eyes and feel your feet on the floor. Breathe a simple breath . . . and another breath even slower than the first one . . . and now another breath . . . still so slowly.

        You are safe here in this room, with your feet on the floor and the floor upon Mother Earth . . . your feet are feeling the warmth of the earth, so secure and so safe . . .

        Breathe again deeply and slowly . . . your feet are heavy now and comfortable on the floor . . .

        Once upon a time it was foretold that the Bridegroom would have a Bride and that goodness would be upon the land and healing would come from their union . . .

        Breathe . . .

        It was foretold that the two halves of God would be together as One . . .

        Wholeness is our birthright . . . Breathe deeply and remember your whole and sacred self . . .

        There was a time when we women knew ourselves to be in sacred partnership, knew ourselves to be the Sacred Complement to the Bridegroom . . . knew that masculine and feminine God meet within each human being . . .

        Breathe again slowly . . .

        Breathe into a place within your heart, a place of knowing yourself as Sacred Partner . . . as soul partner . . . as Bride and Beloved . . .

        It was foretold . . . and let that time be now . . . and let that sacred vessel be me . . .

        Sit in silence for a while and let images or feelings surface within you.

        (Allow 5 or 10 minutes.)

        Open your eyes and come back into the room, as you are ready.

What were your experiences during this meditation?

Joan Norton also offers this journal question, which is an important one for both women and men to reflect on.

In the Song of Songs (5:7) the bride says, “They beat me and wounded me and stripped my mantle from me.” In what ways do you feel women have been treated disrespectfully by your religion?

Joan Norton and Margaret Starbird, 14 Steps to Awaken the Sacred Feminine: Women in the Circle of Mary Magdalene (Bear & Company: 2009), 17–18.

Practice: Putting Flesh in the Game

Like the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, the Black Lives Matter movement is working today to end the systemic injustices caused by white supremacy in the United States. At the same time, as scholar Walter Earl Fluker points out, there are real differences between the two movements and eras. Fluker writes:

The Black Lives Matter movement that began in 2013 is a hopeful sign of this new moment to which we are called. As a grassroots movement it bears similarities with the prophetic cadence of an earlier era when young black activists, many of them college and university students, were able to produce a critical tension among the black leadership of the civil rights movement and the larger society. In doing so, they elevated the struggle for freedom and jobs to a cultural revolution of black consciousness and political awareness. This new movement . . . incorporates some of the same logic but within a very different historical context and therefore agenda—particularly evidenced in the leadership of youth, women, and LGBTQIA activists.

It struggles not so much with the ghostly apparition of Jim Crow . . . but with the ghost of contested post-racialism that has reconfigured the radical egalitarian hypothesis into an assertion that since all lives matter, slogans like “black lives matter” dismiss the many others in our society who also have legitimate claims to identity, difference, and equal justice. In doing so, the ghost disguises itself yet again by minimizing the particularity and the disproportionate vulnerability of black youth in American society over and against the majority of other youth. . . .

Most importantly, the youth of this movement have placed their bodies on the line—they have put some flesh in the game; “This is flesh we’re talking about here. Flesh that needs to be loved.” Every church leader and scholar who is involved in the work of social and political transformation should follow the lead of these youth in being committed to placing his or her body on the line and putting some flesh in the game in new ways. In doing so, we will continue the legacies of those sainted martyrs whose broken bodies and dangerous memories rest just above our heads.

I resonate with Fluker’s call to those of us in leadership roles in the church and other organizations to join these young people in their mission. God put “flesh in the game” through the incarnation of Christ; we, too, are called to incarnate love with our own bodies in solidarity with those marginalized by unjust systems. Like Dorothy Day’s anti-Vietnam protests and Pedro Arrupe’s decision to allow his Jesuits to remain in El Salvador, our contemplation may very well lead us to action with unpopular and painful consequences. And yet, this too seems to be where the living flow of the Holy Spirit invites many of us.

Walter Earl Fluker, The Ground Has Shifted: The Future of the Black Church in Post-Racial America (New York University Press: 2016), 231‒232.

I found this message from my friend Mirabai Starr to be a very inspiring reminder that we have a long way to go and we can’t stop now. #dontgobacktosleep.

Beloved Friends & Family,

As the weeks roll by and Covid-19 continues to surge across America, many of us who activated around Black Lives Matter in the wake of the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and way too many other unarmed Black folks, have drifted back into our worlds and away from the fire of racial justice.  This reminds me of how friends lovingly rally around those who have lost loved ones and then return to concerns of our own, leaving the mourner to the task of bearing the unbearable alone.  It’s understandable, but it’s not necessary.  We can do better.

Especially those of us who practice, teach and worship in predominantly white spiritual spaces.  It is more urgent than ever that we stay with the necessary work of disrupting white supremacy in our communities, starting with ourselves.

There are a couple of beautiful possibilities for ongoing activism and embodying solidarity with Black communities I would like to share with you.

My friend Rev. angel Kyodo Williams invites you to participate in the first-ever Great Radical Race Read (GR3), a five-week, transnational collective practice to transform race one circle, one conversation, one radical read at a time.

NOTE: The first of these events happened on the 5th of July but if you follow that link you can find out more about the ongoing work and subscribe to participate.

Planned prior to the twin pandemics of coronavirus and the scourge of white supremacy expressed through both police brutality and vigilante violence, the potential impact of GR3’s national education & conversation practice is ever more poignant, timely and necessary right now.

In the words of Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar, igniter of the so-called “untouchables” Dalit Movement for liberation — we will “educate, agitate and organize” people forward into love and justice.

Love is always, love is all. Enjoy this beautiful Stevie Wonder song with the poetic lyrics posted on this YouTube. Remember that you are held in love by the Divine, “Always.”

Very timely message in these times. This is a collaboration between our Seattle Peace Chorus Action Ensemble and the Seattle Iranian Choir. Enjoy.