The Creative Nexus™ is pleased to announce that Season Two, [episode 004] of the Blue Sky Highway [BSH], entitled Valentines, Hearts & Epiphanies, will première at 2:00 p.m. ET, on BlogTalkRadio [BTR] and at 2:15 p.m. ET, on Sunday, February 14, 2016, on SoundCloud [SC] HERE .”
The latest episode continues in its ‘contemplative’ theme with alternative, ambient, contemporary, experimental, indie forms of music, mashups and more, as well as spoken word, vocals, and soundscapes.
Each episode of the BSH is designed to be without an excessive amount of talking, and/or comments, so the listener will ‘not’ be distracted from the various tracks and artists, that compose the show. The focus of the BSH continues to be placed upon the music, the artist, and their creative endeavors, and to encourage creative folk, everywhere, to work together and promote each others endeavors for the mutual benefit of all humanity, and the planet. If we are going to survive, advance, and succeed as a species we need to start working together as soon as possible.
Thanks to Roger Allen Baut (Chasing Tao) of Creative Nexus™ and Blue Sky Highway for sharing this announcement with us and for the fine work he does to bring a great diversity of artists together in support of one another. J.D.
I think it is fair to say that most of us here are word people. I appreciate hearing fun words, seeing a well-turned phrase, being sucked into a surplus of meaning…and wonder. Today, I heard a phrase that has captured my imagination and has launched a poetic exploration along with finding an image that I thought expressed the spirit of the phrase. What is it?
The soul is such a shy creature.
That is utterly delicious to me. I hope you enjoy the following haiku and perhaps, you will offer a poetic exploration of your own in the comments! I’d love to hear your thoughts.
the soul
peeking ’round corners
stretching frail tendrils upward
such a shy creature
by Terri Stewart (CC BY-NC-ND)
Post, poem, and photo, Terri Stewart (c) 2014
Terri Stewart ~ a member of our Core Team,comes from an eclectic background and considers herself to be grounded in contemplation and justice. She is the Director and Founder of the Youth Chaplaincy Coalition that serves youth affected by the justice system. As a graduate of Seattle University’s School of Theology and Ministry, she earned her Master’s of Divinity and a Post-Master’s Certificate in Spiritual Direction with honors and is a rare United Methodist student in the Jesuit Honor Society, Alpha Sigma Nu. She is a contributing author to the Abingdon Worship Annual.
Her online presence is “CloakedMonk.” This speaks to her grounding in contemplative arts (photography, mandala, poetry) and the need to live it out in the world. The cloak is the disguise of normalcy as she advocates for justice and peace. You can find her at www.cloakedmonk.com,www.twitter.com/cloakedmonk, and www.facebook.com/cloakedmonk. To reach her for conversation, send a note to cloakedmonk@outlook.com.
I have been at a conference all week where we have been discussing how to organize ourselves to create social change. One of the most fun exercises what a Bible study linking the Book of Esther from Hebrew scripture with organizing for social change.
In the story of Esther, there is no mention of the Divine Name or any prayers offered, instead, it is a primer for racism and overcoming broken political systems.
Plot summary:
King Ahasuerus wants his wife, Queen Vashti, to come and show off her beauty to a bunch of drunk men (including the King). She says, “No.” She is then banished because she is a bad example for all women and all women must “know their place.”
Then the King is on a hunt for another wife. Mordecai pimps out Esther and Esther is brought into the royal harem. Why? She is beautiful, but primarily because she found favor with the eunuchs and maid servants. And they taught her how to find favor with the king.
Haman, one of the king’s guys, gets all pissy about Mordecai not bowing to him and asks to write a law that would destroy the Jews. The King is then able to rubber stamp the law (he gives away his ring) while never getting his own hands dirty.
When the new law passes, the Jews and Mordecai where sack cloth and mourn. Esther hears about the situation from the Eunuchs and encourages Mordecai to wear normal clothing. Mordecai then has the Eunuchs relay to her the situation (she was definitely isolated).
Esther convinces the King that this is a bad situation and the injustice that would have wiped out the Jews is fixed.
Yay! Injustice is fixed!
So, we all face injustice in our context. It may be threats to peace, the justice system, economics, poverty, etc. But we all face it! And some are actively working to correct injustice–creating sacred, healing, wholly, holy, space. In organizing ourselves, the question becomes, can we name:
Who are the Kings?
Who is the Queen who will lay down their power in order to maintain a just world?
Who are the Mordecais? Those who would be persecuted?
Who are the Esthers? The ones who know the King and can be educated as to a new way of living justly?
And who are the maids and Eunuchs? The ones who are also persecuted and underprivileged? Who may have sympathy for the justice issue?
What is wonderful about this is that it allows us to think creatively rather than to think that those with power are the only ones who can cause change. In this story, everyone becomes a change agent! Change for a more just world is another way of creating sacred space.
So mote it be!
And now for some inspiration from slam poetry, “Addressing Food Inequality.”
Post, Terri Stewart (c) 2014
Terri Stewart ~ a member of our Core Team,comes from an eclectic background and considers herself to be grounded in contemplation and justice. She is the Director and Founder of the Youth Chaplaincy Coalition that serves youth affected by the justice system. As a graduate of Seattle University’s School of Theology and Ministry, she earned her Master’s of Divinity and a Post-Master’s Certificate in Spiritual Direction with honors and is a rare United Methodist student in the Jesuit Honor Society, Alpha Sigma Nu. She is a contributing author to the Abingdon Worship Annual.
Her online presence is “CloakedMonk.” This speaks to her grounding in contemplative arts (photography, mandala, poetry) and the need to live it out in the world. The cloak is the disguise of normalcy as she advocates for justice and peace. You can find her at www.cloakedmonk.com,www.twitter.com/cloakedmonk, and www.facebook.com/cloakedmonk. To reach her for conversation, send a note to cloakedmonk@outlook.com.
flickr photo by Evan Leeson cc licensed (BY NC SA)
As I pondered “Bloggers in Planet Love” for Valentine’s Day, I thought that there is something to the visions of paradise that seem to permeate religious cultures. I never see paradise populated by buildings towering into the sky! There are always elements of lush green lands, towering trees, and people living as one with nature. That seems to be sacred space.
And sacred space is realized in different cultures almost always in natural spaces. I remember the journeys of Moses up the mountain top, zen mountain monasteries, the sacred Heart Butte of the Blackfeet…and more down to earth, the ordinary everydayness of working in a beautiful garden box. Connecting with the earth and with ancient rhythms.
Just a moment’s digression. Connecting with the earth. I want to change that to cosmos. I am thinking of the ancient Greek word kosmos. Kosmos is typically translated from ancient Greek to the word world or earth. But it really is equivalent to something like, “all the known existence.” Our cosmos is ever expanding. Our understanding of creation is also. Expanding in energy, connectivity, and creativity.
That is Paradise.
I’d like to take a moment to do a short meditation on realizing paradise and loving the cosmos. First, sit down, put your feet flat on the floor or ground. Let your arms rest comfortable. Let your gaze rest gently on the screen. Slow your breathing. Shake your body out, roll your head, roll your shoulders, settle into calmness.
Let us begin.
Breathe in, saying, “Earth”
Breathe out, saying, “Love”
Breathe in, saying, “Cosmos”
Breathe out, saying, “Love”
Breathe in, saying, “Earth”
Breathe out, saying, “Love”
Wiggle your toes. Scooch your feet into the floor a little. Feel the textures. Describe them. It is part of creation. Of paradise. Let your feet feel not only the floor and its coverings, but send your energy downward. Connect to the earth that supports you and all things.
Breathe in, saying, “Hello”
Breathe out, saying “Love”
As your energy goes downward through your feet to the floor, to the earth, ponder what is missing? Can you feel the absence in creation of a necessary energy? Is there something crying out for your attention? Ask the earth, the cosmos, what attention it wants from you.
Breathe in, saying, “What is”
Breathe out, saying, “Your desire?”
Resting your hands lightly on your hips, keep breathing, focusing on what you are hearing as an answer, through your feet. What is reverberating through your legs, into the root of your spine? This is the location of security, grounding, and survival. Keep asking the earth…
Breathe in, saying, “What is”
Breathe out, saying, “Your desire?”
Resting your hands lightly on your stomach, with your connection to the earth firm through your feet, let your attention travel from the root of your spine upward to the area under your bellybutton. This is the location of sexuality, creativity, and relationships. How is this part of your body reacting to this connection and question? What are you feeling?
Keep asking the earth…
Breathe in, saying, “What is”
Breathe out, saying, “Your desire?”
Resting your hands lightly on your solar plexus or diaphragm, with your feet firmly grounded, feeling the energy reverberating upwards, let your attention travel to the solar plexus. How is this part of your body reacting to this connection and question? Here we find energy, vitality, and personal authority. What are you feeling?
Keep asking the earth…
Breathe in, saying, “What is”
Breathe out, saying, “Your desire?”
Resting your hands lightly on your heart, checking in with your feet, your naval, your solar plexus, move onward to your heart–the seat of balance, love and connection. How is your heart reacting to this journey? Is energy gathering here? Or is your heart at peace?
Keep asking the earth…
Breathe in, saying, “What is”
Breathe out, saying, “Your desire?”
Resting your hands lightly on your throat, moving onward to your throat, still holding a conscious connection to the earth through your feet and the root of your spine, do you feel anything? Sometimes, our voice feels silenced or choked. Other times, we want to sing out of joy! Can you see both? The beauty of the cosmos calling out in song? And the imbalance of the earth? Is your voice choked and suffering? Or is it singing and witnessing? The throat is the seat of communication and healing. What energy do you feel?
Keep asking the earth…
Breathe in, saying, “What is”
Breathe out, saying, “Your desire?”
Resting your hands lightly on your forehead, check in with the earth at your feet, wiggle your toes just a moment, see that everything is doing fine, move upward to just above your eyes. Here is the seat of your intuition and understanding. You have been listening to the earth. Asking, “What is your desire?” Do you sense an answer? Is the earth noisy today? Or quiet? What energy do you feel?
Keep asking the earth…
Breathe in, saying, “What is”
Breathe out, saying, “Your desire?”
Let your hands almost form over your head as if you are holding a hat in place, staying fully connected through your toes all the way to just above your head, check in with your whole self, with the whole earth, and ask if it is okay to move onward. Focus your thoughts into the space above your head. Here, is transcendental connection to all that is. What is it that you desire? What is it that the cosmos is desiring of you? Do you hear or feel a call?
Breathe in, saying, “Earth”
Breathe out, saying, “Love”
Breathe in, saying, “Cosmos”
Breathe out, saying, “Love”
Breathe in, saying, “Earth”
Breathe out, saying, “Love”
Shake your hands out, letting them drop to your sides. Move your attention from your crown, thanking it for the wisdom it has provided you this down. Move downwards, one by one, thanking your body for listening to you and to the earth.
Breath in, saying, “Dear Eyes”
Breath out, saying, “Thank you for understanding.”
Breath in, saying, “Dear Throat”
Breath out, saying, “Thank you for telling.”
Breath in, saying, “Dear Heart”
Breath out, saying, “Thank you for compassion.”
Breath in, saying, “Dear Diaphragm”
Breath out, saying, “Thank you for desire.”
Breath in, saying, “Dear Stomach”
Breath out, saying, “Thank you for creative answers.”
Breath in, saying, “Dear Spine”
Breath out, saying, “Thank you support.”
Let your attention travel back to your toes, concentrating on a full connection to the earth. Look to the earth and to the cosmos. Bow inwardly, inclining your head and your attention, wishing the earth, “Peace be with you.”
And peace be with you.
Shalom and amen,
~Terri
(c) 2014, post, Terri Stewart
REV. TERRI STEWART is The Bardo Group’s Sunday chaplain, senior content editor, and site co-administrator. She comes from an eclectic background and considers herself to be grounded in contemplation and justice. She is the Director and Founder of the Youth Chaplaincy Coalition that serves youth affected by the justice system. As a graduate of Seattle University’s School of Theology and Ministry, she earned her Master’s of Divinity and a Post-Master’s Certificate in Spiritual Direction.
Her online presence is “Cloaked Monk.” This speaks to her grounding in contemplative arts and the need to live it out in the world. The cloak is the disguise of normalcy as she advocates for justice and peace. You can find her at www.beguineagain.com ,www.twitter.com/cloakedmonk, and www.facebook.com/cloakedmonk.
My theology and my anthropology descend from two ideas:
We are all created as beloved children and as an image of the divine
We are called to enter lovingly into sacred mystery, to enter lovingly into our deepest selves, and to enter lovingly into caring for the whole world
That makes the Divine and people ultimately loving and good in my view. The place that I believe that it is most difficult to lovingly accept is when we look into the mirror and see ourselves. What do you see in your mirror? Are you noticing every flaw? Or are you seeing perfection? Those are probably two places that are hard to be. What if we looked in the mirror and found love? acceptance? our ancestors? the future? It is all there!
I am wondering if you could offer a reflection in whatever form speaks to you on what you see in the mirror.
my face is not an
etch-a-sketch
the lines do
not disappear
when you shake me
they are there forever
traced over by time
lovingly etched
by laughter and
tears
my fingers
trace the lines
no knobs to turn
to change directions
the path already
traveled
knowing that each
line
knowing that each
curve
reflects love
no.
I would not trade
these engravings for
an etch-a-sketch
shake-shake-shaking
away each
memory, erasing
each person
that has walked
the line creating a
new face, a
new face, a
new face
and again, a
new face
REV. TERRI STEWART is The Bardo Group’s Sunday chaplain, senior content editor, and site co-administrator. She comes from an eclectic background and considers herself to be grounded in contemplation and justice. She is the Director and Founder of the Youth Chaplaincy Coalition that serves youth affected by the justice system. As a graduate of Seattle University’s School of Theology and Ministry, she earned her Master’s of Divinity and a Post-Master’s Certificate in Spiritual Direction. She is a contributing author to the Abingdon Worship Annual. (The 2014 issue just released!)
I am working valiantly on ordination papers this week. So I am appropriately resurrecting a post from http://www.BeguineAgain.com as our step into sacred space. And yes, I am ordained, but I am a newbie, so for the first two years we have to submit more papers.
Join me in listening to the beautiful chant by Velma Frye. It is a call to stillness. Rest. Quiet. And a reminder that stillness often is associated with darkness. Imagine the seeds germinating in the darkest earth. Seemingly still, but so much creative energy stirring up unbeknownst to observation! But the stillness is what nurtures it. The darkness. The coldness. Be still.
Be Still by Velma Frye
Be still.
Be still.
Be still.
Go deep
into
the silence
of the night
and robe yourself
in darkness.
See with the heart
into the dark of the night.
So silent the night.
So dark the night.
Be still.
Be still.
Be still.
Be still.
Be still.
Be still.
What will you do to create stillness in your life?
How can you use darkness to create wholeness?
(c) 2014, post, Terri Stewart, CC license BY-NC
(c) 2013, lyrics and video, Velma Frye
(c) 2013, photo, Terri Stewart, CC license BY-NC-ND
..
REV. TERRI STEWART is Into the Bardo’s Sunday chaplain, senior content editor, and site co-administrator. She comes from an eclectic background and considers herself to be grounded in contemplation and justice. She is the Director and Founder of the Youth Chaplaincy Coalition that serves youth affected by the justice system. As a graduate of Seattle University’s School of Theology and Ministry, she earned her Master’s of Divinity and a Post-Master’s Certificate in Spiritual Direction.
Here, in the Pacific Northwest, there is a unique descriptor that books have been written about. It is the “none zone.” As in, “What is your religious preference?”
Answer: “None.”
I live here, in the none zone. However, there is a curious thing that happens as soon as the sun comes out. People start going up into the mountains climbing as high and as far as their bodies will let them. Going on a trail, you will never be alone. There are always people traveling with you. I thought, today as I hiked, “This is Pacific Northwest church!” Meaning people are seeking a mystical experience by going up as high as they can and as deep into nature, away from the cities, as they can.
Long ago, I mean a really long time ago, about 3,000 BCE or so, the ancient semitic worldview was quite different from our worldview. The world was flat, the mountains held up the dome of heaven, the concept was that the higher you went up the mountain, the closer you got to the divine. A concrete example of this is the many times that Moses went up the mountain in Hebrew scripture. He goes up to speak to God and comes back down to lead the people. I have included a picture depicting the ancient semitic worldview.
The picture doesn’t quite get across the idea that the highest mountain top was considered to be directly underneath the throne of heaven. So if you could get to the tippy top, you could be the closest to the divine.
In many ways, the folks here, although not religious, are seeking an experience of transformation that happens at the top of the mountain.
Seeing the beauty in sparkling water or the dappled shadows of leaves on the trail. Hearing delighted laughter as a child discovers the lake around the corner or standing still while a bird communes with you. Each act of curiosity, amazement, and even perseverance is an act of transformation. And transformation expands your heart, maybe even up to three times (odd reference to the Grinch here-“and his heart grew three times that day”)!
Hiking, for me, feeds into my spiritual practice of contemplative walks. Coincidentally, it feeds into the ancient pattern of going to the top of the mountain to experience the divine. It is not only the ancient semitic people that did this! I am reminded particularly of the Blackfeet from Heart Butte, Montana. Their most sacred spot (no photos) is at the top of a mountain. There is a tree and people carry their prayers and offerings to that tree and put them there. It feels sacred. It is the holder of dreams and hopes. Hopefully, that is what our spiritual practices lead us to! A place inside our bodies that can hold dreams and hopes–and great sorrow.
Mountains are both physical and metaphorical. Not all of us can climb up a mountain (I am not going to go all the way to the top of Mt. Rainier!). But we all face challenges. Our challenges can either be transformational or they can get us stuck in the mud. So all of this is really a wind-up to get to the questions!
What is your mountain?
Can you go up it?
Do you need to go around it?
Is there a creative, third way to approach the mountain?
What spiritual practices will strengthen you for the journey?
And now I’m suddenly remembering a children’s song / chant called, “Goin’ on a Bear Hunt.”
Can’t go over it!
Can’t go under it!
Oh no!
We’re gonna go through it!
What do you have to go through? And how will you go through it?
TERRI STEWART is Into the Bardo’s Sunday chaplain, senior content editor, and site co-administrator. She comes from an eclectic background and considers herself to be grounded in contemplation and justice. She is the Director and Founder of the Youth Chaplaincy Coalition that serves youth affected by the justice system. As a graduate of Seattle University’s School of Theology and Ministry, she earned her Master’s of Divinity and a Post-Master’s Certificate in Spiritual Direction with honors and is a rare United Methodist student in the Jesuit Honor Society, Alpha Sigma Nu. She is a provisional elder in the United Methodist Church and a contributing author to the Abingdon Worship Annual.
The BeZine 