My last class for my Master’s program was a preaching class of all things! I have no intention of becoming a preacher, but I truly enjoyed the class and the skills gained will definitely help in my work as a social and earth justice activist.
I wanted to share this last sermon with you because it is meant as a message for my community, as you’ll hear in the introduction.
In this talk, I begin with the Sufi invocation and then speak to how we might truly aspire to recognize our place of Oneness, as the Only Being. I reference some of the new earth sciences that tell us there is only one forest, as an example of how this reality is manifest in the only true scripture, the scripture of nature.
When you have 20 minutes to spare, I invite you to enjoy it, and I welcome any feedback or thoughts in case I ever have the opportunity to deliver this to an actual audience!
We are so honored to have this dear friend in Portland, Arifa Byron. The work she is doing and has done is phenomenal and important. These powerful words reflect the person she is and the passion and beauty she brings to our Sufi Ruhaniat community and our world.
Fashion, turn to the left,
Fashion, turn to the right.
Oooooh Fashion.
We are the goon squad
and we’re coming to town.
–David Bowie
And so it goes.
What can we do when dignity falls out of fashion?
Merely turn to face what’s next, passively entertained?
Revel in the artistry without questioning the art?
How do we turn to notice the steady barrage of atrocities,
spreading like an oil spill, sullying our sacred waters,
Whose responsibility is it to wave the flag of memory,
and demand a re-awakening to humanity?
Whose flag do we wave, as we steep
in this bath of humiliation?
Self-satisfaction is in fashion now, the bigger the better.
All of the safeguards, the scaffolding of democracy,
have turned out to be made of cheese,
folding and melting into a sour soup.
Peace has become a foreign object,
unseen, ignored, easily trampled
into broken pieces, fragmented pottery shards,
awaiting future archeologists to piece it back together.
I wonder what tomorrow’s fashions will bring,
what seedlings can be planted for future harvest, in such uncertain soil?
Will there be farmers to pull nourishment out of nothingness?
How might dignity bloom? Sprouting amidst the dirty tangle of brambles?
Scanning the horizon for signs of promise.
Seeking dignity’s return on the fluttering wings of peace,
sung in a cacophony of birdsong,
bringing balance.
BIO
Amanda Smith Byron is a social justice educator with over 30 years of experience working with diverse communities to heal trauma and transform conflict. Dr. Byron is an Assistant Professor in Conflict Resolution at Portland State University, where she directs the Holocaust and Genocide Studies Project, and focuses teaching and research on unsettling the role of identity in conflict, understanding enmification and hatred as root causes of violence, and developing peacebuilding strategies to effectively address ethnoreligious conflict. Her current research interests are focused on the restoration of dignity in the aftermath of atrocity.
In my research for a new talk about our connectedness to every natural being, I came across this wonderful poem in the book, “The Secret Teachings of Plants: The Intelligence of the Heart in the Direct Perception of Nature” by Stephen Harrod Buhner. I believe he is the author of the poem.
Semen is Latin for a dormant, fertilized, plant ovum— a seed. Men’s ejaculate is chemically more akin to plant pollen. See, it is really more accurate to call it mammal pollen.
To call it semen is to thrust an insanity deep inside our culture: that men plow women and plant their seed when, in fact, what they are doing is pollinating flowers.
I have made it through the last classes in my Master’s program and now I’m on the final track to complete my thesis, internship, etc. to graduate (Inshallah) in May!
It is my hope that this blog can be a channel for all of us to continue to remember our connection to the One, to our earth, and to each other. We have much work to do and I truly believe we have the capacity, motivation, resilience, and power to create a new reality.
I love this quote from Terence McKenna – “What is out of control, what is in fact dying is a world that had become too top-heavy with its hubris, too bent by its own false value systems and too dehumanized to care about what happens to its own children. So I say, good riddance to it. … Let’s create a new world.”
In community with all of you, and with the many prophets, thinkers, sages (especially the youth!), we can and will create beauty, harmony, and love in a culture that respects the earth, our siblings, and ourselves as equally deserving of sustainable sustenance, abundance, and joy.
My work toward a Master’s degree in Social Change and a certificate in Spiritual Direction is moving toward its final phases (thus the dearth of recent postings here!)
As part of my practicum for Spiritual Direction, I am required (blessed!) to offer, free of charge, Spiritual Direction sessions for one person for the next 3-4 months. If you would be interested in trying this out, please contact me directly at drmatthewsusa@gmail.com.
Spiritual Direction is perhaps better described as Spiritual Companionship. It is an opportunity for you to spend time being deeply heard and encouraged along your spiritual path no matter what that might look like.
As Interfaith Spiritual Directors, we are extensively trained in deep and active listening, connecting with the Divine, and a wide and expansive understanding and appreciation for all of the world’s faith traditions as well as the science and belief systems of those who would choose, “none of the above” as their spiritual path.
If this feels like something that would benefit you, please consider helping me toward my final goals and graduation in the Spring.
And be aware that once I have completed these goals, I will be offering Spiritual Direction on a sliding scale basis, so this may be a path we can share in the future as well.
Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high; Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls; Where words come out from the depth of truth; Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection; Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit; Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action— Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.
I am moved (pun entirely intended) to send this blog posting based on several recent premonitions that may or may not manifest. I have felt several times in my meditations that our overdue large earthquake is imminent. I hope that I am only tuning into something more general, but I felt compelled to speak of it here.
What does it mean on a spiritual and practical level to be prepared for such a physical disaster? I’ve been considering that and wanted to share some quick thoughts that might apply to any of us, whether our local threats are earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, or other natural or human-caused events.
Spiritually we prepare by knowing and trusting in whatever is our definition of the Divine. By practicing continual connection and awareness of the sacred spirit in all things through meditation, prayer, mantra, singing, dancing and other types of movement, mindful breathing, and truly connecting with nature.
I believe that if we can hold these practices day by day, hour by hour, with every breath and every step on our precious planet, then if/when disaster strikes, we will be better able to hold our center and be in a position to be of service to all our fellow human and more-than-human relations who may be suffering physically, mentally, or spiritually.
There is never enough hope and we can all use the remembrance of what author Kate Davies called “Intrinsic Hope” ( https://g.co/kgs/Aqbkon) – the hope of the seed in the frozen winter ground, the hope of the salmon fighting its way upstream, the hope of the womb.
NOTE: I will be traveling quite a bit the next couple of months, so these posts may come out less often. Sending blessings and love for the new year. May it be filled with adventure and learning.
Enjoy this lovely poetry from Lisel Mueller
Hope
It hovers in dark corners before the lights are turned on, it shakes sleep from its eyes and drops from mushroom gills, it explodes in the starry heads of dandelions turned sages, it sticks to the wings of green angels that sail from the tops of maples.
It sprouts in each occluded eye of the many-eyed potato, it lives in each earthworm segment surviving cruelty, it is the motion that runs the tail of a dog, it is the mouth that inflates the lungs of the child that has just been born. It is the singular gift we cannot destroy in ourselves, the argument that refutes death, the genius that invents the future, all we know of God.
It is the serum which makes us swear not to betray one another; it is in this poem, trying to speak.
~ Lisel Mueller ~ (Alive Together: New and Selected Poems)
