Justice, Poetry, Earth and Joy

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Wednesday December 14, 2011 · 12:00 PM PST

2011/12/14 · 12:00

Sunday morning I had the pleasure of delivering a poem to support a performance of Paul Winter’s Missa Gaia. This is a stunning piece of music, performed and recorded annually to great effect, with Winter himself conducting, at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan on the evening of the Winter Solstice. It was no less stunning in this little Unitarian Universalist Church, with singers and musicians of my own community. Below is the poem, following my introductory words. I offer them as blessings for these times.

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Monday November 21, 2011 · 5:33 PM PST

2011/11/21 · 17:33

I saw this video tonight. Am short on words, but big on hope and love.

http://www.youtube.com/...

Was stunned, delighted, knocked over by the power and beauty of the Occupy Movement, brought to light so vividly here. Remembered writing this poem (below the squiggle) in 2004, day after George W. Bush was, well, not voted but put in office for the second time, and all the media talk was of

avidpollinator for Street Prophets

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Tuesday November 15, 2011 · 7:24 PM PST

2011/11/15 · 19:24

Sunday evening I returned from a week of spiritual training and retreat in the Colorado Rockies, a Wisdom School, with the gentle and wise Rabbi Nadya Gross. In my travels and on the Retreat, I was plagued with lower back pain, the likes of which I had not known since I gave birth nearly twenty years ago. This time a combination of yoga followed by an intense bout of weeding on our Co-op farm shortly before my travels caused the present injury. The two day train ride, and a misstep on the funky staircase in the lodge where we stayed, exacerbated it.

Here I was, away from home,chiropractor and my usual comforts, doing something I longed to do, but hurting. I could not move myself in anything like my usual ways. My motions were, had to be, slow, deliberate, and supremely careful. I didn’t like it, but I adjusted as best I could. And, new for me, I chose not to let the discomfort dominate my experience, but to open instead to new ways of healing, new levels of health that I sensed were waiting on the other side of this injury.

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Thursday October 27, 2011 · 12:29 PM PDT

2011/10/27 · 12:29

What follows is a letter I wrote recently to a member of one of my spiritual communities, Kol Zimra (Voice of Song). We are students of contemporary Jewish mystic Rabbi Shefa Gold. Our primary shared practice is chant: melodic repetition of sacred Hebrew phrases from scripture and liturgy. I had sent a brief letter to the entire community (there are 75-100 of us spread across North America, and beyond!), with the intention of inspiring, educating, and gathering energy for the Occupy Wall Street movement. An email response from one of my companions sent me deeply musing into the nature of my own current activism: why I am so powerfully drawn to this movement now and how I find my footing within it. I wanted to respond in a thoughtful, personal way to a woman who had reached out to me personally and thoughtfully.

I share the letter here for your reflection.

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