Category: Main blog

This offering from the Creation Spirituality community looks like an excellent opportunity to find hope and resilience together.

“It’s not about being heroic, it’s about being REAL.”                  John Robinson

Join us for a monthly conversation on

CREATION IN CRISIS

Led by our CSC Elder Team:

Rev. Dr. Penny Andrews ’01, Facilitator, 

Work that Reconnects Rev. Dr. John Robinson ’06, Author, Mystical Activism

Rev. Dr. Gail Ransom,’10, Community Organizer

First Thursdays at 1pm PST     2pm MT     3pm CT     4pm EST 

Oct. 3   Nov. 7  Dec.5   Jan. 2   Feb. 6   Mar. 6   Apr. 2  May 7

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Save the link below and paste it into your browser at the scheduled time.

https://zoom.us/j/976843367

Each of us is following a spiritual path in this unique and perilous time.  How are you weaving your Creation Spirituality with the constant news about climate change? What have you chosen as your spiritual service to Earth? Join us for a virtual wisdom circle and be inspired and supported by others in the CS community who are exploring the spirituality of service and are working to offset the effects of climate change. 

 Each person will have the opportunity to speak on topics like: 
What do you most cherish about Earth?

What wisdom have you gained from revering creation? 

What feelings does climate change bring up in you? 

What organizations have given you  a way to address our situation?

What art inspires you to keep going?

Where is your consciousness focused when you act on Earth’s behalf??

What are the young people doing in your region and what kind of support are they needing?

What keeps you going? What gives you hope? 

All Four Paths will be woven into our discussions.

Via Positiva How do you express your reverence for Earth? 
Via Negativa What are your fears? What are you having to let go?
Via Creativa What new ideas, images, and possibilities are welling up inside of you?
Via Transformativa What is your ministry? To where are you drawn to offer service to Earth in this unprecedented time of change?

Please plan to join us on the first Thursday of the month. 

Save this notice and click on this sentence OR  copy and paste this link into your browser to join the conversation

https://zoom.us/j/976843367

This gathering is supported by Creation Spirituality Communities. Please check out the CS Communities website to find out more about CSC. 
Become a member of Creation Spirituality Communities. 
Your donations help us continue our work. .  

Dear friends,

For the past several weeks, I have found myself moving, at times uncomfortably, into liminal space. This culminated and came to a particularly unique state in my most recent Master’s program class on “multi-religiosity amidst the blessings of our ancestors.”

This journey into the liminal began in early August with our yearly Northwest Sufi Camp, followed by a week of Spiritual Direction training at the Interfaith Chaplaincy Institute in Berkeley. Then I had a moving evening of Shamanistic ritual, movement, and sound with Ecuadorian teachers Susannah and Adriana and finally a week in the Master’s class.

I have very much wanted to somehow relay the sense of these weeks yet find it hard to put into words cogently.

So, I share the following two poems with you. The first expresses the feeling of oneness and divinity as I stepped into the liminal spaces of Sufi camp. The second describes the entire journey with the allegory of entering and dwelling in a liminal mansion.

Enjoy!
*********

The Veils Unraveled

Each radiant face,
Each majestic tree,
Each trembling leaf,
Each soft breeze,
Each watery whisper,

Each drum beat,
Each moving tone,
Each loving touch,
Each squealing laugh,
Each sorrowful lament,

Each whispered prayer,
Each rooted connection,
Each touch on my heart,
Each tingling energy,
Each pulsing warmth:

The veils unraveled
and unraveled until
I stood naked, weeping
resplendent, redeemed
No longer separate.

Divine
*********

Dwelling in the Liminal Mansion

From the world of ticking, insistent time
From the world of sirens, buses, restaurants
From the world of hurry, worry, scurry

Appears the mysterious, glowing, throbbing door
Into the in between spaces – do I enter?

Trembling
With fear,
Excitement,
Apprehension,
Doubt… I answer:

Of course! Hineni! Here I am Divine One!
I turn the golden, resplendent, knob –
Stumble over the threshold with a bow.
What’s up? Where are we? Which way from here?

I’m in a grand ballroom
Bedecked with prayer flags,
Sufi heart and wing symbols,
My dear friend and guide, Ganesha,
And goddesses and gods of every stripe
Both embodied and illustrated.

We dance,
We sing,
We move together,
We pray.
We spin.

And spinning, I find myself at a new doorway
Smaller, but pulsing, warm, cracking open as I fall through.

In this library room
We sit in circle
Blessing one another
Sharing joy
Sharing sorrow
Sharing love
Sharing fear
Finding hope
Finding light
Finding beloved community.

As we embrace in remembrance and farewell
With promises of companionship and compassion
I dissolve into tears and fall into dreams of sound and movement.

When I open my tear blurred eyes
And wipe my wet cheeks
Yet another door stands before me.

It is round and open
Warm light streams from within.
With a deep bow – I step over this new threshold.

In a cave-like, dome-shaped chamber,
encrusted and sparkling with jewels,
beloveds alive and dead await.
There is a space in the circle
The size and shape of my soul
Into which I slither and slip
Like a wisp of smoke
The keystone that completes the arch.

In this place of soft prayer
And sweet, chanting song
And deep, loving sharing,
In the spirals of spirit and mystery
We expand to include all
We contract to become the original singularity
We explode to create worlds and worlds
We dissolve into One.

And finally,
I fall through the center
Into the Holy of Holies
The pulsing,
Divine,
Inclusive,
Mystery of the Mystery of the Mystery.

I am that I am
Hallelujah!

Huuuuuuu

Painting: Leap of Faith ~ Acrylic on Wood 2004 by Shiloh Sophia

This isn’t a test. There are no check boxes that you missed. No arbitrary line that you have already crossed. No way to fail this. This isn’t based on who is smarter and who has more value. This idea is a dangerous illusion. This isn’t a race. There isn’t a starting gate. There isn’t a finish line. There isn’t a prize for going faster, better, longer. There is no where to get to. Exiting the race may mean you enjoy this day a whole lot more. This isn’t a game. There are no other competitors that you need to beat. No made up rules by someone who didn’t have your best interest at heart. No way to lose. Even not showing up doesn’t mean you lose. This isn’t a game at all. This isn’t a dress rehearsal. You don’t need to spend your time looking good and acting normal. You don’t need to look like you are the best one for the position. Just being who you are, isn’t easy, but it guarantees this isn’t a dress rehearsal that you can fail. You already got the gig, the one for which you are perfect, your own life. This isn’t a fight. There is no one to beat up. There is no referee calling the shots. There is nothing to win. That doesn’t mean there aren’t causes to defend. Don’t enter the battlefield with bravado and promises of doom and dread. It has never turned out well for us in the end. Start singing with your whole heart about this. There is no winner if anyone loses. We know this. The alternative is inherent in releasing the sword wielding mentality. Reclaim your consciousness from the over-culture. Today would not be too soon. Stop trying to get ahead since it is costing you everything. Is it time for a leap of faith, without an objective to get ahead? Who would you be being without objectives and goals to define your invented reality? Maybe an even better idea would arise. You never know. Yes, we will die anyway. Turns out that isn’t the point. We might end up living instead of racing, pretending, fighting. That sounds lovely, doesn’t it. Where is that freedom…we know it exists. We never stop looking, yet it is closer than we thought. Don’t make a bucket list. There is no list. There is loving what you love and in that, everything. What if we missed the point? Is there a point? We keep making up new stories to justify the cruelty. Yet as cruel as we are to ourselves, we should start right. here. This isn’t what we once thought. Changing the contextual metaphors may be one of the most important decisions of our lives. Shiloh Sophia The word overculture is from Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes: “I coined the word Overculture many years ago to speak about the grid that the overculture slams down or sometimes subversively dreams down over the spirits and souls of human beings… in order to diminish them, set them into matchboxes, exhort them to behave, or else.” “If you want to change the world, you have to change the metaphor.” ~ Joseph Campbell

This wonderful blog post by Matthew Fox speaks to the entreaty from Mary Oliver “I want to tell you everything I have learned about life.  Life is about three things: 1. Pay attention.  2.  Be astonished.  3. Share your astonishment.”

He compares the way she looks at life to Hildegard of Bingen and shares some beautiful poetry from both of these feminine mystical icons.

Please enjoy:

The Via Positiva: Mary Oliver & Hildegard of Bingen, Sisters of Astonishment

This comes from Fr Richard Rohr’s Daily Meditations blog and is a thoughtful look at ways in which we can use meditative practices to help us “move through suffering and find creative responses.”

From the post:

“Meditation teacher Ruth King helps people cultivate awareness of how we impact each other and ourselves, especially being “mindful of race.” For those of us who are white, thinking about our own race can be unfamiliar and uncomfortable. For people of color whose ancestors and they themselves have experienced oppression, this exploration can be quite painful. But the path toward healing for all of us includes attending to the details, as Holmes suggests, and seeing reality as it is. “

Practice: Attending to Details

The mystic’s concern with the imperative for social action is not merely . . . to feed the hungry, not merely to relieve human suffering and human misery. If this were all, in and of itself, it would be important surely. But . . . the basic consideration has to do with the removal of all that prevents God from coming to . . . [fullness] in the life of the individual. Whatever there is that blocks this, calls for action. —Howard Thurman [1]

Each Saturday we offer an invitation to contemplative practice. You may not always choose to try the practice we suggest, but I hope you will explore today’s, even if you have a regular contemplative practice.

One of our Living School teachers, Dr. Barbara Holmes, writes about “crisis contemplation” as a way to express grief and find refuge in the midst of danger. We need practices to move through suffering and find creative responses. One example of crisis contemplation occurred on plantations:

Here, enslaved Africans created narratives of survival that depended on personal courage and God’s deliverance. The word courageous within the context of slavery is problematic because it has incongruous but romantic overtones. Those who attempt to describe the horrors of one holocaust or another inevitably use language that mythically denies, romanticizes, or diminishes the oppression. When history is collapsed into myth, responsibilities become diffused, and repentance and reconciliation become impossible.

In the inflated realm of mythical oppression, villains are so villainous that no one sees themselves reflected in the image. Few can trace accrued privileges to specific and intentional evil acts. Similarly, victims become so quintessentially and epically victimized that all escape routes from the condition are sealed off by a maze of self-doubt, blaming, and low self-esteem. The antidote to this phenomenon is to attend to the details, to understand the specific events, ancestors, life stories, causes of oppression, and avenues of social change. Historical and spiritual specificity is salvific. Then and only then can the movement toward moral flourishing begin. [2]

Meditation teacher Ruth King helps people cultivate awareness of how we impact each other and ourselves, especially being “mindful of race.” For those of us who are white, thinking about our own race can be unfamiliar and uncomfortable. For people of color whose ancestors and they themselves have experienced oppression, this exploration can be quite painful. But the path toward healing for all of us includes attending to the details, as Holmes suggests, and seeing reality as it is.

Find some uninterrupted time to reflect on Ruth King’s questions below. After you’ve held these with an open heart, you may wish to do some research with an open mind.  

• Where in your life do you feel numb, shut down, dismembered, disrespected, or disconnected? What is your earliest memory of feeling this way? What events or circumstances do you believe gave birth to these experiences? What do you believe such feelings keep you from knowing?
   
• What racial identities or ethnicities have shaped how you have come to know yourself as a race?
   
• What views did your ancestors, elders, parents, or caretakers have about race? How did their views impact you? In what ways were/are your views similar or different?
   
• What are the roots of your racial lineage? Given your lineage, what has your race gained or lost throughout the generations? How have these gains or losses influenced your racial views today? [3]

[1] Howard Thurman, “Mysticism and Social Action,” cited in Alton B. Pollard III, Mysticism and Social Change: The Social Witness of Howard Thurman (Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers: 1992), 65.

[2] Barbara Holmes, Joy Unspeakable: Contemplative Practices of the Black Church, 2nd ed. (Fortress Press: 2017), 80.

[3] Ruth King, Mindful of Race: Transforming Racism from the Inside Out (Sounds True: 2018), 173, 174.

This is such a sweet and needed meditation practice in these times.

From the article:

“In my hermitage, I have planted beautiful trees. When I do walking meditation, I often stop and hug one of the trees, breathing in and out. It’s very nourishing. The tree gives me strength, and it always seems to me that the tree responds to my hugging and breathing.”

“Hugging meditation is a chance to practice our awareness of impermanence. Each time we hug, we know it may be the last time. Our deep awareness of the impermanent nature of things inspires us to be very mindful, and we naturally hug each other in a deep, authentic way, appreciating each other completely.”

At the end of the article, he outlines the steps for his hugging meditation practice. Absolutely worth finding a time and place to try it out. Next time I see you, let’s give it a try!

https://www.lionsroar.com/how-to-practice-hugging-meditation/?mc_cid=51e3bcd9e3&mc_eid=aba969cd81

After the last week of horror and continuing despair, I am feeling the importance of remembering joy. I hope you will find this “On Being” episode as refreshing as I have.

“There is a question floating around the world right now: “How can we be joyful in a moment like this?” To which writer Ross Gay responds: “How can we not be joyful, especially in a moment like this?” He says joy has nothing to do with ease and “everything to do with the fact that we’re all going to die.” The ephemeral nature of our being allows him to find delight in all sorts of places (especially his community garden). To be with Ross Gay is to train your gaze to see the wonderful alongside the terrible, to attend to and meditate on what you love, even in the work of justice.“

Click on the link below to hear the podcast:

Tending Joy and Practicing Delight with Ross Gay

One of the greatest influences on Starr King School for Ministry which I am attending has been Dr. Ibrahim Farajaje Baba who acted as provost for nearly 20 years. He was a uniquely gifted orator, teacher, lover, and champion of intersectional awareness. I feel so blessed to bask in the legacy he has left us.

This video is of a lecture he gave for a Faculty Summit in 2010. The whole thing is worth listening to, but please at least skip forward to the beautiful spoken word poetry that starts at around 26:20.

NOTE: I will be at Northwest Sufi Camp next week and then in Berkeley for school the rest of August – so there may be less of these blog posts (although I expect to be able to do some during that time).

As we all know, one of the best cures for despair and overwhelm is to get into the forests and wild places and allow them to heal you. The trees and the animals and the mycelium and the dirt, as well as the ancestors whose bones you walk upon, are all there eagerly awaiting your open heart to join them and feel their genuine and never-ending love, compassion, affection, and healing, connected energy.

So, get into nature as often and for as long as possible. But for those in-between times, here is a quick reminder and dose of beauty. Have a good sound system or earphones and let yourself sink into this experience.

From the site:
“In a short and strikingly beautiful cinematic journey to wild places we are asked to think about how we are leaving the natural world for generations to come. What if our children’s children could never lay eyes on wild country because it is already destroyed? Spending time in the wild is not a past-time, the narrator tells us, rather it is a biological necessity like water, air and food. The video ends on a hopeful note, pointing out that thousands of people are spending their time working to leave their areas better than when they arrived.”

Click on the link below to experience this video journey:

Time For the Wild

Dear friends,
I will be traveling for the next couple of weeks so there may be no postings or at least fewer.

This is a truly wonderful and moving article by one of our wise Sufi Sheiks (Click on the title/link to go to the full article).

Living the Moment of Love, by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee

Some excerpts:

“Spiritual practices—meditation, mindfulness—can help give us access to these moments [of blissful connection to the All]. But is it enough just to live them in their innocence, or do we need to bring an awareness of the changing story that surrounds them, a story of the Earth abused and exploited, species depleted, waters made toxic? And how can we reconcile the wonder of the moment with our responsibility and love for the Earth that gives us these moments? What does it really mean to live in the now?”

“Passing from innocence to experience, awareness of the moment has many ingredients. If we listen carefully it carries the stories of the present time, of what is being destroyed, abandoned, desecrated. As much as we respond to the joy of a newborn baby, it is important that we are also aware of the colors that are beginning to fade, of an interior music that is becoming fainter and fainter. We are here to hear the stories of the Earth, of the life that is around us—not as children without responsibility, but bearing part of the burden for what is happening. Each in our own way we recognize and respond to what is changing.”

“How we live this destiny depends upon how we live the intersection of change and the changeless, the eternal and the transitory. This is where the two seas meet, where the Divine and human intersect. It is here that the destiny of the soul is fully realized, and here where we are also awake to the world soul, the anima mundi, and its sacred nature. Here our hearts can hear the real need of the time, and open to the story of love that is life’s greatest secret. Science may tell us that our world is made of atoms, particles, and electrons, but there is a deeper wisdom that knows that the world is created out of love. As human beings we have the capacity to fully live this mystery of love, and so participate in the healing and transformation of the Earth.”

“With an open heart we can see and sense the sacred nature of all of life. We can return reverence to the multiplicity of creation, and to its “interbeing.” Love and the sacred nature of creation belong together: they are crucial to life’s well-being. And in each moment we can live this power of love; with all our senses we can be awake to what is sacred. Here we step into the arena of real service, service to life and love, with our hands and hearts. Life will speak to us as it spoke to our ancestors, and if we listen attentively it will tell us how to help in its time of need. This is when the moment becomes fully alive and prayer and action are bonded together.”