Water

"Pilgrimage is not just in the seeing: more important, it's in the listening.

Sometimes the only way transformation can occur is

if we sit silently and allow the inner journey to unfold."

Tom Maddix,

Running Scared: The Call of Pilgrimage

I took a break to rest a bit after a busy month of travelling in April and May.  It was great to take time to simply rest.  

I spent a week at Five Oaks Retreat Centre in the first week of May to continue on my sabbatical journey. Solitude and service were two themes for this particular journey. I was working as a host to greet various individuals and groups sojourning at Five Oaks. 

Jackie Childerhose, director of Grand River Spiritual and Educational Resources recommended Running Scared, Tom Maddix's book on Pilgrimage, as I was browsing through books one afternoon.

Reading Maddix's account of his pilgrimages of sacred sites around the world helped me to understand more about pilgrimage.  Reading books on Sabbath and pilgrimage while I am on sabbatical seems to connect me more deeply on deep listening.  

Some of what Maddix shares:

     "While the tourist may go to the same place to see the outer reality, the pilgrim is focused on the inner and symbolic

      reality of the place."

     "Being on pilgrimage is about noticing what happens outside and inside us."

     "I went into church hungry and came out starving."

     "If we are to find a new harmony in our lives, we must change how we live and seek more coherence between our

      inner and outer selves."

     "Our dreams help shape every part of our lives."

Here are some images of water I saw through the lens as I walked around Five Oaks.  Photography can be a way of deep listening.

I have been working with Toronto Conference staff and volunteers on the visual presentation for the upcoming Toronto Conference Annual Meeting on May 25-26 in Orillia, Ontario. It was challenging to find and provide images that would reflect and support the ideas and images in scriptures and hymns that will be used at the gathering. It was also exciting to implement my sabbatical research into a concrete project. 

I have selected about 50 images of my photos for the gathering. A few more images will be photographed on the first day of the meeting to include in the presentation on the second day.

I will be able to share the presentations and accompanying images after the Annual Meeting.

The Valley of Dry Bones & The River of Life

The Valley of Dry Bones and The River of Life are the themes of my sabbatical photography project.

I will be reflecting on the poems listed below and create photographic images reflecting the two themes - images of desolation and of renewal - through connecting the visual images from the poems with the visual images in the nature.

This is how Muriel Rukeyser describes poetry.

"Poetry depends on the moving relations within itself.  It is an art that lives in time, expressing and evoking the moving relation between the individual consciousness and the world.  The work that a poem does is a transfer of human energy, and I think human energy may be defined as consciousness, the capacity to make change in existing conditions.  It appears to me that to accept poetry in these meanings would make it possible for people to use it as an 'exercise,' an enjoyment of the possibility of dealing with the meanings in the world and in their lives."

Muriel Rukeyser, The Life of Poetry

Here is a list of poems for my reflection:

The Peace of Wild Things by Wendell Berry

The Need to Win by Chuang Tzu

Di Apple of Har Y’eye by Afua Cooper

A Place to Sit by Kabir

Tonight Everyone in the World Is Dreaming the Same Dream by Susan Litwak

A Litany for Survival by Audre Lorde

Last Night As I Was Sleeping by Antonio Machado

Learning to Listen by Darmody Mumford

On Waking by John O’Donohue

The Journey by Mary Oliver

The Vast Ocean Begins Just Outside Our Church: The Eucharist by Mary Oliver

Thirst by Mary Oliver

Accepting This by Mark Nepo

Surviving Has Made Me Crazy by Mark Nepo

Kindness by Naomi Shihab Nye

The Art of Disappearing by Naomi Shihab Nye

Love After Love by Derek Walcott

The World Has Changed by Alice Walker

Where life begins

"No-one has the right to define for another what is sacred."

Karen Toole-Mitchell

Gautama Siddhartha, the historical Buddha, realized that life entails suffering because of our desire and attachment to things and feelings.  When he became enlightened he also realized that suffering will cease once you let go of desire and attachment through eight different ways.

Leonard Cohen, a practicing Buddhist, sings Show Me The Place with images and metaphors from various religious traditions. 

I hear “show me the place where suffering began” as “show me the place where life began” or "show me the place where your journey toward enlightenment began."  The word “slave” could be heard as servant or beloved – the one who surrendered one’s ego to the Sacred.

May I suggest you listen to Cohen’s wisdom and longing as you view the following images?

http://soundcloud.com/leonardcohen/show-me

Peace,