By Nancy Bowker
Category: Art as Resistance
Presence
By Melissa Shaw-Smith. Re-posted from her blog.
The year has rocked this world to its roots.
What if for one day each being put down
their burdens, their words of hate, their inhumanity
and breathed in the presence?
Stopped fighting for history, for fears, hopes, dreams
and stood facing the morning sun
letting the warmth of the moment
and the next, the next, accumulate like dust at their feet
Listened instead of spoke, acknowledged truth,
embraced silence.
What if for one day each being acknowledged the fear
and let it go? Suspended beliefs
opened their arms, drew strength
through earth, grass, rock, sand
Found the sparrow singing from a lone bush
the small heart-shaped cloud
Felt the currents of air wash over them, mingle
with the breath, and let the seams unravel
borders blend, walls dissolve
and be
one.
Learning the Word in the Shell of the World
By Bill Wylie-Kellermann
For Danielle and Matt, 4/28/12
it is
new as an egg nested high in the cleft of a rock
teeming precariously, with life,
and ancient, even as the rock itself
fresh as manna glistening the ground
of a wilderness camp
convened in the company of ungulates, angels, and wild beasts.
we travel light, learning this day
our daily bread – and nothing more Continue reading “Learning the Word in the Shell of the World”
In Winter
By Kate Foran
With an invitation to Word and World’s Heart and Hearth: A Writing Retreat for Women.
The nights are getting chillier and the ground is covered in frost by morning.
On days like this, even getting out of from under the warm covers to start the day requires deliberate intention. There’s a choice to be made. You have to ready yourself. Same with stepping outside in the cold—you have to attend to the transition between the cozy heat inside and the bite of cold on the other side of the door. One by one, the layers pile on. Continue reading “In Winter”
Rebels and Saints
By Lydia Wylie-Kellermann
For the last two weeks, Isaac has asked me to read the same story every night- The Librarian of Basra: A True Story from Iraq by Jeanette Winter. It is the story of Alia Muhammad Baker who saved all the books from her library just before the library was burned to the ground during the US bombing of the Iraq War. It ends with her dreaming of peace from her home filled with books from floor to ceiling. Each night, Isaac asks what happened to Alia? What happened to the books? We finally looked it up and they re-built the library and she is the librarian again with all the books and stories she held safe from our mass destruction. Continue reading “Rebels and Saints”
Homoluminous
Quick afternoon note from Lydia Wylie-Kellermann
I started some early Christmas shopping a couple of weeks ago and I wanted to share it with all of you. Molly Costello is a fellow graduate of Loyola University Chicago and an incredible artist. She has just released a calendar for 2019. Her art tugs at my heart, gives rest to my soul, speaks to the truth, and summons my hope. I think this calendar is stunning and I encourage you all to enter into the calling she invites of us all for 2019.
Here is her description of the calendar:
Existing within the growing depths of white supremacy, late stage capitalism and climate chaos we are faced with questions around how to reimagine our world beyond the seemingly insurmountable weight of these systems. HOMOLUMINOUS explores the ways we are emerging into a new type of human community, one that is glowing, connected, and more equipped than ever to achieve collective liberation. By practicing empathy, gratitude and grief rituals, growing food and honoring the power of our imagination, we come to realize that we are the resilient body that our ancestors dreamed up to heal this world. We are the living light. We are HOMOLUMINOUS.
Check it out here.
Rooted and Grounded
by ric hudgens
Humans pretend to live
suspended in air
feet never needing
a place to land.
Rilke wrote
gravity is grace
so we should surrender
trust our heaviness
fall to a depth
where life becomes possible
again. Continue reading “Rooted and Grounded”
One Broken Body is Enough
From Rev. Sonny R. Graves, pastor at New Spirit UCC, who posted this on Facebook last week during a pilgrimage to the U.S./Mexico border with the Green Valley-Sahuarita Samaritans. Sonny draws from the writing of Mary Luti.
Early morning over here in Arizona. The sky is lighting behind the range of majestic blue outline of the mountains. The summer night is warm, deep, and dry just like this Californian loves it to be. The systemic racism and anti-immigrant violence of my country and government further revealed here is feeling beyond words right now. It is heartbreaking. And we have been reminded many times throughout the trip it is also our responsibility that if our privilege or ignorance or unknowing has been disturbed – it is up to us to change it together. Continue reading “One Broken Body is Enough”
Sophia
By Rhonda Newby-Torres
This piece was developed during the third Bartimaeus Institute Online (BIO) Study Cohort 2017-2018. These pieces will eventually be published in a Women’s Breviary collection. For more information regarding the BIO Study Cohort go here.
In the beginning
there was only darkness
Her thundering groans travel effortlessly through the night
as she rolls and bends through the pain
She wants to squat
but her knees will not unlock Continue reading “Sophia”
Reminders For Tomorrow
By Ric Hudgens
Wake up before you get up
or if there isn’t enough time
just wake up.
After you screw your head
on right your face
should be looking forward. Continue reading “Reminders For Tomorrow”
