January 2019 Newsletter

This newsletter is a publication of Creation Spirituality Communities and is funded by its members and supporters. If you are enjoying this newsletter and appreciate keeping up with the Creation Spirituality community, please consider becoming a member or renewing your membership.

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Membership is available at several different levels at annual and monthly rates.

Just a quick note to apologize for the delay in publishing this edition of the newsletter. Despite living in southern California, far from either the polar vortex of the US north or the heat wave in Australia, I managed to catch a nasty cold. Just another of nature's ways of reminding us of the need for via Negativa time, wherever we are.

We are starting a new feature this month where each member of the Board of Directors will share a bit about why they are part of Creation Spirituality Communities via video. The first is from Rev. Judy Shook (see below).

Rev. Seth T. Longacre, MLA '99

Editor

Rev. Judy Shook, Masters of Creation Spirituality ’95,  is the solo pastor of Ukiah United Methodist Church of Ukiah, CA. Her playful sense of humor dances with her deep commitment to earthy mysticism. Judy is an InterPlay leader who brings her cross cultural experiences of living in Hawaii and Alaska to her work on the board. Peace-with-Justice issues have been among her passions, especially full inclusion of LGBTQ persons.

In this video, Judy speaks about why she is part of Creation Spirituality Communities.

This is an area where you can make connections with other CS practitioners in your area. If you see someone in your area, please reach out to each other!

I live in Sonoma California. Is there a community in/near the vicinity in which I live? I want spirituality connection with like minded humans. I am a Licensed Spiritual Practitioner, 20-years, with Centers for Spiritual Living. I hunger for more. Thank you.

Talibah Chiku

[email protected]

Anyone in Seattle I could get in touch with to form a group?

Cecile Andrews, author of  Living Room Revolution , and 

Less Is More, Slow Is Beautiful, Circle of Simplicity

[email protected]

Dear Friends,

Thank you for all the wisdom in this beautiful newsletter! I loved both John Robinson's "Waking Up" and Penny Andrew's "The Answer to How is Yes". The first resonates deeply with mystic in me and the second with the activist. Yet I find it very difficult to reconcile or integrate these perspectives...that in the eyes of a mystic all problems simply fall away like the residue of a dream, there is no goal and nothing to do; with the recognition that we are living on the brink of destroying the Earth, a global crisis of our own making, and that it is urgent to act. Can anyone there help me reconcile these two perspectives? As a lifelong spiritual seeker, deeply disturbed by what is happening in the world today and feeling called to act, this is not just a theoretical question but a burning question in me.

My other question is whether there are any living sacred activist communities in the world where people live together and practice radical awakening, but also act from truth, commitment and love to transform our global crises? I would love to find such a community!

Many thanks for your wonderful work!

          In gratitude,

           Kavita

[email protected]

by David Sparenberg

I love to hear the voices of children

the sweet, melodious voices of children.

I love their faces.

beautiful faces.

happy faces.

And spontaneous bodies:

bodies of curiosity

bodies of light and life.

How easy to love!

How easy to suffer!

And how spontaneously to share the

well-waters of emotions:

to laugh

to cry.

Theirs is the health and purity

of truth

before the learned disorders of corruption.

I love to be in the presence

of children.

I love them.

But how do children grow

up to become citizens of a world of

cruelty and want, violence and oppression?

A world perpetually at war

against nature.

A world at war

against children. 

By John Robinson

A life time of study, a master’s degree and two doctorates (psychology and spirituality), interfaith ordination, numerous articles, nine books, and the wisdom of age, can all be distilled to this:

Stop. Stop talking, stop thinking, stop whatever you are doing. We are standing right now in Heaven on Earth. Reality is conscious and alive. It knows us. Divinity is everywhere and everything. We don’t see this because we only see our thoughts that create another world, a world that is crazy and ugly. Stop everything, wake up, and SEE. When the ego goes, thought goes, beliefs go, false self and false world evaporate, and the whole house of cards falls apart to reveal that we never left the Garden. We are divine beings in a divine world - pure consciousness, joy, beauty and love. And in the great unity of being, I am you, you are me, we are God. Everything else is an illusion. This is the “other world.” 

by John Spiesman

Light breaks through causing all creation to Rejoice!

Surprising the world in times of negativity and darkness

Are there times in which accepting creation’s light is choice?

Light breaks through to bring all creation to catharsis.

Surprising the world in times of negativity and darkness

How will our world welcome this glorious Light?

Light breaks through to bring all creation to catharsis.

Awakening our souls, pushing off a dark night.

How will our world welcome this glorious Light?

Surprising the world in times of negativity and darkness

Awakening our souls, pushing off a dark night.

Light breaks through causing all creation to Rejoice!

John Spiesman is a Spiritual Companion and Dream worker in the Jungian Mystical Tradition from Northeast Ohio. He is interested in nature photography, capturing all aspects of and symbols in creation throughout the seasons. John enjoys honoring dream images through photography and may be contacted through his website : www.drjohnspiesman.com

By Robyn Hubbard, DMin.

Recently, I noticed tears welling up in my eyes and spilling over freely.

 

It was a familiar feeling. Reminding me of sitting with my mom on her deathbed almost 30 years ago, stroking her arm and experiencing the same free flow of tears. Our family had a spoken agreement not to cry in front of her so she didn’t “catch on” that she was dying. Yet, there I was sitting with her, crying openly. There was no heaving, sobbing, face crunching, or story needed—simply an ease and freedom of the truth revealed. I was sad, and my love and longing for my mom’s continued presence flowed heavily in that tender moment.

My mom hadn’t spoken a sensible sentence in 28 days since her last seizure from a terminal brain tumor. Little did I know she would be gone in a few days. As I sat at her bedside, gently stroking her arm, with great clarity and presence, mom calmly popped out of her incoherence while looking me in the eye and said, “It’s ok to cry.”

Turns out she knew she was dying. We were the ones fooling ourselves.

That same easy free flow of tears came today in the midst of a powerful moment where I found myself sitting in the truth, once again. While the details of the story are not important, it is the recognition of a golden thread of truth acknowledged and witnessed in a particular moment that is striking.

In this experience, I was able to see with the same extraordinary clarity that my mom displayed in the moment that she emerged into stark coherence that day on her deathbed. I saw the ways that I had been strategically deceiving myself, out of an inherited need for self-protection, keeping myself armored in the midst of an outdated belief. 

I noticed what felt like a hollow, empty sensation in my belly and a shield of armor across my upper body as I desperately fought for control and the appearance that I had it all together. All of this a habitual response born out of a mixed up message that I internalized as a child – that I had to hide what I was truly feeling to be ok. I felt a deep sadness, once again, oozing out of me with tears effortlessly falling steadily down my face. 

It was my own gentle stroking of the uncomfortable sensations in my torso that seemed to wake me up. As if my brain leaped out of a dysfunctional stupor, similar to the moment of my mom’s clarity emerging out of the malignant brain tumor’s terminal effects. I told myself...”it’s ok to cry.”

Such tender words as I sat with and gently mothered my younger self on the deathbed of an outdated belief. Turns out, it was time for me to die, before I die – and I knew.

To die before you die is a profound Zen adage and quote from the Sufi poet masters that I often ponder in moments like this. I am perpetually in awe of the death and rebirth energies available simultaneously in the experience of letting go. Again and again, in the midst of the small deaths, I remember to nurture myself in the release, stay connected with my body and open to the vital life force available, that is liberating beyond measure. 

Turns out, it is time for this woman to dance – with a little more weight in her bones, wiggle in her hips and soul in her step, while always trusting…

It’s okay to cry.

Robyn is a Spiritual Companion, Grief Counselor/Certified Compassionate Bereavement Care Counselor (MISS Foundation), Certified Professional Dreamwork Facilitator (Marin Institute for Professional Dreamwork), Certified Massage Therapist (ABMP) and Reiki Master. All of her work emphasizes a somatic, or body-centered, approach and invites a relaxed curiosity toward soulful living - which includes our grieving.   www.corehealingarts.net

To be loved

By Mair Honan

for all his grumpiness,

for all his crankiness,

for all his plea to be left alone,

he was so touched to be loved.

Sometimes earth has dried

so very much

delicious water rolls around

not finding entry.

Even then, 

we know,

water 

finds a way.

we may not see

the moment of opening.

we may see only

resistance.

but in a heartbeat,

in the softening of the mask,

we know,

he was so touched to be loved.

By Carol Vaccariello

I have a secret desire. 

On my first solo Transatlantic crossing, I experienced a sight that stole my breath away and brought me to tears by its stunning unexpected beauty. 

Sometimes I wonder if others are touched, the way I am, by the unexpected surprises of beauty that nature shares. For me these are rich blessings I do nothing to earn. Freely given with no announcement to their appearance. 

I am attempting to recall the voyage. I think it was my first Transatlantic Cruise. Frank died in March of 2009. I was scheduled to travel to Glastonbury, UK in April. 

I thought to cancel the trip due to Frank’s death. Friends and family who knew how difficult, stressful and demanding these past years of caring for Frank had been, encouraged me to go as planned. 

It was an educational opportunity to study in Glastonbury, England with Geomancer Sig Lonegren and his wife, Healer/Energy Worker Karin.

I planned to stay at a B&B up the hill from their home called Pippin.  An elderly couple owned the home. John was in his nineties and Edith in her eighties. 

They were good to me. 

When I wasn’t certain about making the trip, I wrote telling them of my husband’s recent passing.

I received a message of condolence from them and then, of course, there was that pregnant, expectant silence of a couple of weeks. I received an email from these gentle business-like strangers who needed to know my decision. Should they expect me or not?

I decided to travel as planned, I don’t think they anticipated my decision.

When I arrived, they greeted me as family. My room was upstairs. John, although much less fit than I, close to ninety years, insisted on carrying my heavy suitcase to my room. Once he settled me in, he went down to the kitchen returning with hot tea.

They introduced me to their adult children, gave me access to their personal private computer on the table in their bedroom. When a friend, an academic and published author from a local Institute came to visit, I was invited to join them in the living room for wine and conversation. It was a healing time. 

Days were filled with learning sessions at the Lonegrens’ home and road trips to ancient geological sites. Sig specialized in Earth Energy. 

We visited fascinating Standing Stone Circles, feeling their energy and marveling at the size of the stones and their strategic placement.  We imagined the humans who placed these large boulders and wondered at their strength, skill and strategy. Just how did they move these stone giants? We leaned against the large stone-people, sometimes being repelled by an energetic spinning force. 

We learned to use Divining Rods, studying and interpreting Earth’s Energy. We calculated the path of the sun relative to the placement of the stones, determining and calculating the original intention of the stones’ positioning. 

There were five students. All of us very different. Each one there for unique reasons. This is truly another book.  

However, there is one memory that calls out to be shared here. In April 2016, I had plans to visit Amsterdam. Karin was born in the Netherlands. Since being with them in Glastonbury, I remembered that she and Sig had relocated to a place North of Amsterdam.  

I sent an email and received an invitation to visit with this memory attached.  It was about seven years since I visited Glastonbury. In her response email, Karin recalled this treasured moment she and I shared. This happened when I was reeling from losing Frank in 2009. The trauma of memory loss around the time of the death of a loved one is well documented. 

I remember the year my Father died, Frank and I took my Mom to see the beauty of the Wisconsin Dells. Years later when we spoke of this trip recalling some of the highlights, Mom said we must be mistaken. She had never been there. She had absolutely no recall of the Ferry Boat crossing at Lake Michigan or any of the natural beauty that we saw. She was emphatic that we must have taken that trip without her. 

When I showed Mom the photos of her standing on the Ferry’s open deck with the strong wind blowing her hair straight back, she was shocked to see this evidence.

This trip was a significant amount of travel. Mom experienced these two weeks and held no memory of even one moment.  

Karin’s email recalled a unique moment that we shared in 2009. I have not thought about it since then. I am grateful that I hold the memory that Karin’s email awoke in me.  The simple fact that she remembered attests to the uniqueness and the power in that shared moment.

When I met Karin, knowing that I had recently experienced the death of my husband, she offered a private healing/energy/light session to help me manage the huge energy shifts I was moving through.

After an hour or more on the massage table with Karin helping the energy readjust to my new way of being in the world without Frank, I stood and walked toward the window that looked out over the backyard. In silence, Karin stood to my right, as we looked out into the beautiful sun kissed day ......that’s when it happened.  

In that instant, taking both of us by total surprise, more White Butterflies than either of us could count fluttered up out of the flowering bush beneath the window. 

We didn’t see them in the bush. 

It was only as they flew up, opening their pure white wings, rising from the deep green foliage, spreading out, filling our view, that we noticed them. 

I felt a deep message in that moment of blessing. Frank released, from pain, from me, from anything or anyone who might have bound him to his Earthly life. He was well. He was filled with the JOY that only comes through deep healing from serious suffering, like Alzheimer’s disease.  In the White Butterflies he fluttered and soared, letting me know I could let him go and receiving his invitation to somehow travel with him. 

We both saw the butterflies rise, so, so many. 

We didn’t talk.

We witnessed!

We shared tears of JOY!

I have a secret desire!

Eumenides

By David Sparenberg

“Where were you when I needed your protection,” asks the blasted flower. “Instead of protecting you tore apart the atmosphere and exposed us all to the dark temperament of the sun.”

“Where were you,” asked the choked river, “when I needed you to protect the purity of my waters? Instead of protecting you poisoned and turned generosity into death.”

“Where were you when I needed you to protect and love me?” asks the outraged Earth. “Instead of protecting you enslave, rape, torture. That I am sick from misuse in a fury of madness.”

Thus, says the Earth, “Beware the madness of the Earth!” Her winds are venomous serpents, her bowels tectonic-dragons. She is the resurrection of Leviathan. “Beware the Furies’ return.”

As a 14-year-old Quaker, I am accustomed to silence. I understand it is not empty; it can hold profound power. I have felt my spirit resonate in the silence of my Quaker community, but silence has recently taken me outside the meetinghouse to the steps of the Maryland State House. This time, I am hoping my silence will open the way for spirit to move others, specifically the legislators who will be considering the Healthy Green Amendment to the Maryland State Constitution.

Annapolis Friends Meeting offered my first opportunity for activism, participation in the first People’s Climate March in New York City in 2014 when I was age 9. I marched with a group of Quakers that spanned 8 decades in age. My 8-year-old brother and I could seldom see beyond the person in front of us, and the eldest in our group navigated the 4-mile route with walkers, but we were all hopeful and glowing on the drive home. I was inspired by the size and positive energy of the crowd; the clever messages of the signs; the creative, powerful art; and even the friendly courtesy of the police. During that march, I evolved from concerned kid to a committed activist.

In the days surrounding the 2016 Presidential Election, my passion landed me on the seat of a bicycle, pedaling with Low Carbon Crossing from Pittsburgh to Washington, DC to lobby congress with Citizens’ Climate Lobby. We watched the election returns in an area of  Pennsylvania where human health, drinking water, air quality, and agricultural land are impacted or threatened by fracking activities. Maryland had a temporary moratorium on fracking that legislators would be reconsidering in the upcoming legislative session. In February 2017, I took to the streets of Baltimore with a group of young Friends, canvassing for a permanent fracking ban that was approved by the end of March.

I realized most kids were very concerned about the future of our planet, but they could not come to the second Peoples Climate March because they didn’t have an adult willing or able to take them. I wanted to make sure their concerns were represented and noticed, so I created the outline of a giant monarch butterfly and an earth background on a 24’ play parachute. Over 1600 kids signed and shared their concerns on that parachute. Their words in orange, blue, and green marker filled the scene with color, and those giant butterfly wings helped our hopes for a sustainable future fly down Pennsylvania Avenue and around the White House on April 29, 2017.

Last January, my collective art project inspired Parachutes for the Planet, an international art initiative through the Mother Earth Project. Communities of youth around the world have already created over 350 parachutes to share their concerns about climate change and their hopes for the future. Parachutes decorated the National Mall in Washington, DC during the youth-led Zero Hour March and the third Peoples Climate March in San Francisco.

In November, with support from Annapolis Friends and hospitality extended by Toronto Friends Meeting in Canada and Saranac Lake Friends Meeting in New York, I shared my activism on a panel at the Parliament of World Religions and the Wild Center’s annual Youth Climate Action Summit.

In December, I joined the Sunrise Movement advocating for a Green New Deal and I was moved by the inspiring determination and clarity of 15-year-old Greta Thunberg, who began striking from school in Sweden, calling for bold action on climate change. While she addressed the 24th U.N. Climate Conference in Katowice, Poland, I joined the growing international Fridays for a Future movement. I organized a strike on December 7. We played an atmospheric CO2 themed hopscotch at the U.S. Department of Energy in Washington, D.C., to protest the administration’s delegation, which was promoting the use of coal and other fossil fuels.

At the opening of the Maryland General Assembly on January 9, Greta’s inspiration brought me back to Annapolis and my Quaker roots. For years, my activism has focused on giving youth a voice, but our leaders still seem determined not to listen. Quaker practice has shown me that silence often speaks louder than words, so I will strike without speaking until my leaders pass the Green Amendment and show me the concerns of youth have been heard. I am counting on their hearts to hear more clearly than their ears.

Wayfarer

By Elisabeth-Anne Dumont

Wayfarer I Am

Solitary treading the spiritual path

That painstakingly leads me to You

My Lord

As I faithfully yearn for a greater Oneness and intimacy 

With You

And become more obedient to Your will

In spite of or maybe because of my many errors 

And shortcomings

The endless meanders it took on this road to You

To get me where I Am today

A little closer, more centered and inwardly focused on You

More still and knowing, listening better

No longer pulled off kilter by the illusions

And frivolousness of this world

Content to have left behind all attempts at glamour and vanity

With their self centered evil inclinations

Wayfarer I Am

Still a wandering Jew in this life

Looking forward to reaching at last

The illusive shores of this inner journey bound to You

This place coveted long ago of great Love, Agape Love

A Love for all humanity

A place where I feel at home wherever I Am

Because You are always with me

And no matter where I look

It is You that I see

As I speak the universal language of music and love

That opens up all doors and every heart

Wayfarer I Am

Wanting no more for You are inside of me

Thirsting no more for I have found in You

The fountain of youth and the living waters of eternal life

Hungry no more for You have showered me with Mana from Heaven

As You did Great Moses and the Israelites he led

In the exodus from Egypt

Blessed by Your Grace

Overshadowed by Your shield of protection

I Am ready at last to end my 40 years of wandering in the desert

As I follow You

And soon will enter the Promised Land

Wayfarer I Am

No more

Many in our community have been deeply touched, nourished and enlivened by the writings of Mary Oliver and so we mourn her passing. I invite you to take a moment to remember your first introduction to her and to allow her intense attentiveness to the spirituality in all of creation to enliven you, yet again, in this moment.

Your Editor

When Death Comes

When death comes 

like the hungry bear in autumn; 

when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut; 

when death comes 

like the measle-pox

when death comes 

like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering: 

what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything 

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood, 

and I look upon time as no more than an idea, 

and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common 

as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth, 

tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something 

precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say all my life 

I was a bride married to amazement. 

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder 

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened, 

or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

Together in this symposium, we will explore the above questions by looking at: Where we are now, how did we get here, the new story, what is possible now and where do we go from here?

Saturday, Feb.16, 2019

11:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.

(Registration at 11:30)

Location: 23 Diana Dr. (Keele/Sheppard), Toronto, ON

Sliding scale: $25-40 (to cover materials)

RSVP to [email protected]

RSVP required!   You're welcome to invite friends.

The AWAKENING THE DREAMER, CHANGING THE DREAM SYMPOSIUM is part of a rapidly expanding global initiative of the Pachamama Alliance, in more than 80 countries in 16 languages. It's a totally unique workshop -- live facilitation and participant interaction are combined with a tapestry of video interviews, drawing upon leading edge information and the wisdom of our time, with some of our most respected global elders, luminaries and leaders.

What you will get from this process:

Seating is limited, and on a first-come basis (15 seats currently available).

Join Rev. Matthew Fox and others in an online 9-day Leadership Course Feb 11-22, 2019

Nine Days live at 1:00pm-2:30pm MST each day on zoom. 13.5 hours total. 

All classes are recorded and available for 30 days.

 

Rev. Matthew Fox: Spiritual Leadership in a time of Cultural Upheaval and Despair 

4 days, Feb 11-14, Monday through Thursday

Abby Wells: The Leader as Spiritual Subject 

Feb 18, Monday

Rob McNamara: The Mystery of Leadership and The Descent of Uniqueness 

Feb 19, Tuesday

Joran Slane Oppelt: Making Sense of it All, An Integral Worldview 

Feb 20, Wednesday

Vera de Chalambert: The Emergence of the Prophetic in the Anthropocene 

Feb 21, Thursday

Rabbi Victor Gross: Judaism's Encounter with Leadership: Lessons Learned, Attributes Desired 

Feb 22, Friday

For more information and to register visit:  https://www.foxinstitutecourses.com

Matthew Fox brings the Cosmic Mass to San Antonio on Sunday evening, April 28 ^th

Matthew Fox is a noted author and theologian, who coined the term Creation Spirituality on which Celebrate Circle is founded. He and his team bring the Cosmic Mass, a ritual celebration process which combines elements of ecstatic dance, guided meditation and sacred ritual, based on the Four Directions of the Earth. This process is inspired by dance raves, but is also grounded in leading-edge, contemporary science, as well as the ancient indigenous beliefs and the age-old contemplative faith traditions of the East and West. It contains an urgent call for re-examining our personal and communal relationships to the Earth in the face of global climate change.

This first-ever production of the Cosmic Mass in San Antonio is being sponsored by a coalition of local environmental groups and faith-based non-profit organizations, including the Celebration Circle, Compassionate San Antonio, Green19, the peaceCENTER, and the SOL Center.

Sunday, April 28, 2019, 7:00 – 9:30pm

Whitley Theological Center

285 Oblate Drive

San Antonio, TX 78216

TICKETS:

$25 in advance

$30 at door

https://www.celebrationcircle.org/

https://www.facebook.com/events/334958497233988/

For more information contact:

Rudi Harst

[email protected]

210-533-6767

Are you a lover of creation seeking other like-minded people? Would you like to bring this retreat to your local community?

For the past two years the Board of CSC has been developing a retreat curriculum to help small groups focus on their love of creation and the sacred work of caring for it.

This retreat offers participants connection, support, renewal, encouragement and empowerment individually, for our communities and for our world. Together we explore Earth wisdom and the tools for understanding the nature of growth and change using Creation Spirituality and the transformative process of living systems. This retreat module compels us to live out our Sacred Work in the world through spiritual inquiry, creativity, and prophetic action.

The retreat has now been pilot-tested in three locations and we are seeking other individuals or small groups who would like to offer the retreat in their local area. We have developed a 2 1/2 & a 3½ -day model. We would like to offer the retreat in at least two new locations this year. Is this something your community might be ready for?

If so, someone from the Retreat Module Development Team of the Board will work with your team to adapt the module to uniquely fit it to a theme that works for your community. We are continuing to offer this resource for free this year (2019) to communities that are willing to give formal feedback as we continue to develop and refine the model. Our goal is to have the finished resource available for purchase from CSC next year.

If you would like to take advantage of the opportunity to present this retreat to your community this year, please contact: Roxanne Whitelight or Judy Shook

Does not wisdom cry ? and understanding put forth her voice? (Proverbs 8:1) My name is Charlie Dorsett, and on my podcast, Wisdom's Cry, we seek out the voice of Wisdom. I've done series on The Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, Jesus in the Four Paths, Mother Mary on the Four Paths, How to read a myth, The Apostle's Creed, and most recently, The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran. I am also open to questions and content suggestions.

I started this podcast because I wasn't able to find one covering these topics, so I took it on as a spiritual practice to delve into these ideas and share my journey with others. Since spirituality is a group activity, I would love you to join me on the spiral dance through the paths. Wisdom's Cry is available on many podcast platforms, and you can find a link to all of them at  https://anchor.fm/wisdoms-cry

The Transformational Power of Education

You are Invited to Join the Board Directors for a Monthly Zoom Call Discussion

On The “Future And Restart” Of The

Fox institute For Creation Spirituality

First Friday’s at 12:00 PM Mountain Time

www.foxinstitute-cs.org

Topic: FICS First Friday’s Monthly Zoom Call Discussions

Every month on the First Fri, until Jun 07, 2019, 6 occurrence(s)

Jan 4, 2019 12:00 PM

Feb 1, 2019 12:00 PM

Mar 1, 2019 12:00 PM

Apr 5, 2019 12:00 PM

May 3, 2019 12:00 PM

Jun 7, 2019 12:00 PM

Please download and import the following iCalendar (.ics) files to your calendar system. Monthly: https://zoom.us/meeting/323201888/ics? icsToken=5f872da31e5c793e532dea529f68bf928a6b5f9d1e2c93b4430781d4a5e4f130

Join Zoom Meeting

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Dial by your location

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Meeting ID: 323 201 888

Find your local number: https://zoom.us/u/ac2Xbrvrde 

For the month of January at Spiritwind in Auburn, CA we did a study of the mystical writings of four of the founders of modern quantum physics: Max Planck, Albert Einstein, Erwin Schroedinger and Werner Heisenberg.  

Spiritwind meets every Thursday evening year-round in Auburn, CA and is led by Rev. Dr. Rick Kuykendall.

Spiritwind is a Creation Spirituality Community in the tradition of "One River, Many Wells" and has been meeting in Auburn for 15 years.

I am war and peace.

Hear what I say.

- Thunder Perfect Mind

The Dragon has long graced our mythic world with its magnificent and often terrifying presence. You will notice in stories and movies (our modern-day myths), it is always the dragon that is the last of the beasts that need to be fought and overcome. Who is this one that we get to ride and command, if it does not kill us first?

Dragons have been given a positive connotation through being described as guardians of treasure, often symbolically representing a hidden wisdom. This secret wisdom is known to give great transformational power for humanity’s evolution. The negative force ascribed to the dragon is one of pure destruction, of fighting against the force of good so that it may have the ultimate power and control. In different geographical locations and at varying historical periods these same attributes have also been assigned to the crocodile, the hippopotamus, and the primeval serpent, with all of them coming to represent the dragon and all bringing forward the fear of death and destruction.

Behemoth, the hippopotamus creature of land, is described as first among the works of God (Job 40: 19), and Leviathan, the crocodile creature of the seas, as one who has no equal on earth, being created without fear (Job 41:25). Both represent the dragon energy in the Ancient Near East. No one could survive their destructive life-taking force, yet at the same time they were considered God’s greatest of creatures, as being the first-created and equal to none.

The dragon in the book of Revelation has also been represented as Samael, or Satan, the one who fought in the heavens and was cast down upon the earth, raging against the woman and child, or humanity itself. He joins forces with the beast from the sea, and the beast from the land, seeking to deceive humanity into a false worship. Here we have the ultimate myth of good versus evil - or the penultimate question: who does the grail serve?

Samael is also called the primeval serpent, and there is a story that speaks of him becoming Lilith’s husband in the desert-land when she was raging and birthing demons. Remembering that Lilith (the original woman) can also represent the serpent, we come back to the union of the masculine and the feminine. If we are bound to the destructive masculine and the destructive feminine, we will surely call up the beasts of land and sea from within us. If we are in command of these inner beasts, however, we are then able to ride them and use their ultimate power for the good of humanity. Rather than raging at humanity and destroying our own happiness and those around us, we will be serving the goodness of all. This is the personal level, but there is also a greater cosmic level and that is where the dragon as crone arises.

          

There is the abyss where we can say, the dragon crone - meaning the guardian or keeper of secret wisdom - resides. The abyss is not some large, dark nothingness, but rather it is everything and anything that keeps us in separation. It is also the force of destruction or dissolution in constant flux. One who can face the vision of a larger world or cosmic dissolution and understand the necessity for such a movement is on the way to knowing the secret wisdom and learning how to ride the dragon. Dissolution or destruction is not seen as negative or evil but an ultimate fact for every world system. So, when it is spoken that Leviathan is God’s greatest creature, then we can begin to understand, when in divine alignment, that such a being or energy as this one will bring about a great transformational change. Having no fear, as Leviathan embodies, is essential to riding and using our own greater transformational power.

          

The dragon crone has been much aligned as we perceive her as only bringing war and destruction, but through this she ultimately brings peace and new life. I am war and peace…I am the disgraced and grand being. Nothing more grand can be found than her secret wisdom.         

Prayer for the Revealing of the Truth of Dissolution

Open my mind dear dragon crone

That I may know the truth of your destructive nature

That I may feel its liberating power for all of humanity

Let me not turn my face away

But be willing to the vision of the night

In my own soul and that of the world.

May I cease fearing and trembling 

And stand firmly in my grand being

Knowing war and peace to be one

One within me, one within all

Revealing your secret wisdom of

True Life.

Meditation:

Begin by feeling any aversion you have to the thought of destruction, and then let yourself keep falling into that, deeper and deeper. Open to the light of the crone within the midst of this destruction. Let yourself be elevated to the cosmic dimension of this dissolution, and begin to see the new life being born from within this seemingly dark chaos. Let the new life keep opening and growing until there is no destruction left. Rejoice in the new consciousness that arises from such a powerful movement of love.

Excerpt from The New Divine Feminine: Spiritual Evolution for a Woman’s Soul by Meghan Don

www.MeghanDon.Life

This may well be the best book written on the divine feminine. It is not only a book ‘about’ spiritual evolution, it is immediate, inwardly felt. These alive words awaken truths already present but covered over for centuries…This is a book of waking up, of becoming our nature. A book every man should read!

- ROBERT SARDELLO, PhD, author of Silence: The Mystery of Wholeness

For the past year, I have been deeply engaged in preparing two new CDs, and they are now finished!

The first is called Into the Promise of Morning.  There are 28 songs to heal the heart and lift the spirit for those who may be seriously ill, lonely, or in need of the comfort of music. These songs grow out of my work as a Certified Clinical Musician with Hospice of the Northwest.  

The second one, just completed, is Singing the News. For this one, I bring forth the “prophet” as I “interfere with business as usual” through songs addressing the political and social challenges of these times. There are 20 songs of hope, courage, love, death, history and whimsy.

Please visit my new website,  www.lindasongs.com, to learn more.

None of us will get where we want to go unless all of us get there. When we begin to see that all healthy relations are collaborative in nature, then we will all be serving something bigger than any of us. One question worth asking is,

Are we searching for the meaning of life, or are we searching for the experience of being alive? We often forget that we are nature. Nature is not something separate from us so when we say we have lost our connection to the natural world, we’ve really lost our connection to ourselves. “Only those who partake of the harmony of their own souls know the harmony that runs through nature. Whoever feels a lack of this inner harmony feels a lack of it in the world. The mind in chaos finds chaos all around. - Yogananda 

But learning to surrender takes time. And if we’re wise, we’ll listen. We’ll move as the current moves and rest when the waves tell us to sit still. We can grow into the natural harmony Yogananda speaks of with a deep trust in that current. Eknath Easwaran (1910-1999) writes: When the distorting instrument of the mind is made clear, we see life not as a collection of fragments, but as a seamless whole. We see the divine spark at the center of our very being; and we see simultaneously that in the heart of every other human being—in every country, in every race—though hidden perhaps by clouds of ignorance and conditioning, that same spark is present, one and the same in all.

As the planet is pushed to its limits, so too are we. While the changes being triggered ecologically are threatening in many ways, their effects on us, even when they do harm, may well also produce the evolutionary pressures that will form something like a diamond, a qualitative structural transformation of the elements of our very character. It will demand everything of us. That means we must accept responsibility for human evolution itself—and that this evolutionary transformation must take place not over eons, but rather as an accelerated “punctuated” sociocultural transformation.

Evolution has shown its ability to find astonishing expressions under the right circumstances. It has always proceeded against overwhelming life- and- death odds, but right now we are in the midst of a collection of interconnected challenges and opportunities of unprecedented scope and intensity. If evolution proceeds in fits and starts, with long periods of relative “equilibrium” punctuated by turbulent periods of rapid evolutionary innovation, those of us alive today are right in the center of the action.  - Terry Patten

I have always been drawn to the natural world for as long as I can remember and the wilderness is a most profound, sacred text to which I find myself returning again and again. It nourishes like a well that never dries up. It has been my best friend. Revelation didn’t end 2000 years ago, as I had once been taught to believe. God, or Love, or Life is revealing herself to us continually and at every moment.

The church fathers of Christianity and our western culture have placed such constrictions around the sacred, with their theological arguments. I long for the excitement of being alive now, in this moment, in a world that is itself sacred. Yet we’re living in a hierarchical system where people are ranked, placed in slots, judged as worthy or unworthy. Children pick up on the subtle cues of competitiveness quite early. That wasn’t what I wanted for my own children. I wanted them to fall in love with life. Certainly I wanted them to do well in school, to do their best, but it was more important to me that they be kind, that they recognize that every being has intrinsic value. Every being has a right to be here. Every being is made in the image of the divine and that every animal and every ecosystem is sacred.

I’ve written a children’s story in which I focus on these issues. Although written with children in mind, The Book of Mem also carries adult themes that can open up discussions around the need for the Sacred Feminine, the need for a new sustainable economic system and the evolution of humanity. My illustrator, Shannon Benson, is an amazing artist. We hope you will purchase and enjoy our book. It is available at Amazon, but is less expensive at lulu.com.

Jody Walker is an artist and a writer. You can see her stoneware and writings at http://www.sacredearthart.com

There, you will also find a guide for discussion about the The Book of Mem.

Creation Spirituality Communities, Inc. (CSC) is a network of individuals and communities who are grounded in the sacredness of all creation and seek to connect to the spirituality of creation through mysticism, creativity, and cultural transformation.

CSC includes people from many spiritual traditions, cultures, races, sexual identities, and ages. They come to Creation Spirituality through the writing and speeches of Matthew Fox, through articles and videos, through conversations with friends, and through study at one of the Creation Spirituality universities – now the Fox Institute of Creation Spirituality.

Creation Spirituality Communities provides avenues for gathering together, being inspired, and embodying the CS message of compassion, co-creation, and transformation. We are led by a nine member board of directors and supported by our members.