Mysticism and Spirituality Circle

This beautiful set of practices comes from the latest issue of Emergence Magazine ( https://emergencemagazine.org/ )

Inspired from his essay The Voices of Birds and the Language of Belonging, David G. Haskell created this five-part practice for listening to the language of birds. The human capacity to take in sound evolved over thousands of years, in direct relationship to the sensory, living world. Our attentiveness to the voices of other species provided us with vital information. In today’s age of ecological crisis, we again find ourselves in a situation where attentive listening is required for a mutual thriving, even survival. Bird sounds offer an opportunity to reclaim this ancient connection. 

Step outside and listen.  

Follow the link below to see the practices he offers:

In a practice for one of my Master’s program classes this week, I noticed that I felt a sense of shame at not being adequate to the immense needs of our planet and our children.

I felt a deep sense of desperation that nothing I am doing or will do will ever be enough.

Have any of you ever felt those feelings?

Yesterday, I was blessed to spend time in the forest at Hawthorn Farm, and as I sat with those feelings, I found myself weeping with pain and sadness.

After some time with those deep feelings and their expression in tears, this poem arose:

Weeping in frustration
and sorrow – finally
drained of tears (for now).

I open my eyes and breathe in
the scent of mushrooms exploding
in slow motion out
of the moist earth.

Breezes stirring
in the trees and freeing
the many-colored leaves
to do their final dance
to the welcoming forest floor.

Clouds of so many shapes scuttering
across the deep blue
creating moving fake mountains over
the newly snow-dusted Olympic range.

Out of sorrow, joy. 
Out of tears, prayers.
Out of suffering, gladness.
Out of darkness, light.

I hold
sorrow, tears, suffering, darkness
In my left hand.
I hold
joy, prayer, gladness, light
In my right.

Together they make me whole.
Together they fill my soul.

In this posting from Matthew Fox, he speaks to the inspiration Howard Thurman received from the young people attending the March on DC in 1963.

I am often asked and have often wondered myself, what good our protests and marches actually do.

Thurman notices and is inspired by the way these young people in 1963, (and I would suggest those today involved in the Climate Strike, Gun Control, Black Lives Matter, and other causes) demonstrate such courage and have “caught the spiritual overtones” of the activism work they are engaged in.

Matthew Fox asks: Are we becoming “attuned to the spiritual dimensions of what we are about today” in our efforts at rebelling against our and other species extinction?  At addressing Climate Change?  At realizing that the peril of the planet is also a perspective that allows all generations but also all religions and all nationalities and all peoples and all tribes to work together t combat a common enemy—the death of the planet as we know it? 

Check out the full posting here:

ACT GREAT

What is the key
To untie the knot of your mind’s suffering?

What
Is the esoteric secret
To slay the crazed one whom each of us
Did wed

And who can ruin
Our heart’s and eye’s exquisite tender
Landscape?

Hafiz has found
Two emerald words that
Restored
Me

That I now cling to as I would sacred
Tresses of my Beloved’s
Hair:

Act great.
My dear, always act great.

What is the key
To untie the knot of the mind’s suffering?

Benevolent thought, sound
And movement.

~ Hafiz ~
 (The Gift – versions of Hafiz by Daniel Ladinsky)

I took a walk to find some air and found, instead,
a chill that lives in the marrow.
The sky was colorless,
lifeless: no bird, no insect, no visible sun or moving cloud.
Even the Monarch slept.
The earth, the land, the hills, the path
all void of bloom, muddy and soggy from winter.

The lake was frozen
though the mallards seemed to find a path.
“Keep moving,” I whispered to them.
“Just keep moving.
All this is fleeting. Keep moving.
Despite it all, find the stream that flows.”

Then, suddenly, as if they heard my supplication,
they turned toward me. One after another in a line
following the leader, they came ashore.
I sat awhile and watched them do what ducks tend to do.

The wind picked up, the chill thickened, and I thought,
I must forgive what was. I simply have too much to lose:
dignity, trust, my dreams, a sense of self,
faith, love, imagination,
joy, confidence,
God.

Then just as quickly as they came ashore,
They returned to the pond.
“Keep moving,” I whispered to them.
“Just keep moving.
All this is fleeting. Keep moving.
Despite it all, find the stream that flows.”

Forgiveness is like a stream in a winter pond. It finds a path through the ice. Keep moving forward toward goodness and love. Keep moving away from hurt, keep moving toward wholeness, so you can regain what you have lost. Let the pain be as fleeting as the winter chill. Let love and wholeness abide. Find the path through the ice. — Rabbi Karyn Kedar, The Bridge to Forgiveness: Stories and Prayers for finding God and Restoring Wholeness (2007), pgs. 21-22.