Lament with Earth
Past Events
Wednesday, November 1, 2023:
Fall Event: Via Negativa, with the Element of Air
Co-hosted by Center for Spirituality in Nature
In the Fall, as the natural world becomes more still, and stark, we, too are invited to let go — to, in the words of Matthew Fox, "embrace the lonely, quiet moments in our lives when we are asked to sink into nothingness, to let pain be pain, and accept the mysteries of life." When the trees lose their leaves, spaces open up — and we can see things differently. We see the world starkly, as it really can be, absent the robust greenery that hides the structures of the trees’ branches and trunks — and, in the cities, can also hide the angularity of the built environment.
In the same way, when we are stripped of our illusions — the false sense that the climate isn’t really changing, it was just a particularly hot, or wet, fiery, or dry summer this year — we can see things differently. We need to have our illusions peeled away, to face the hard truths of our times. It is better to live in the truth. But we need to have real, loving company in order to do that...otherwise, in our isolation, we are far more subject to despair.
Wednesday, December 6, 2023:
Winter Event: Festivals, with the Element of Fire
Co-hosted by Good Grief Network
“The holidays…invite us not so much to dispel the darkness with light, but to enter the darkness with whatever light our consciousness brings. It is there in the darkness, as frightening as that might be, where we truly meet our spiritual selves. It is within the darkness, the unknown, that our creativity and our hope and our promise take root and have their home.”
— Charles Blustein Ortman
Festivals are times of miracles. Both the Christian story of the birth of Jesus and the Hanukkah story of the oil for the lamp point to unanticipated, and unplanned, miracles. And so many of the festivals involve candles or lights of some kind. How might we, even in our lament, make room for the inbreaking of the miraculous? What is illuminated differently by the candles of the advent wreath, or menorahs, or by solstice bonfires?
Wednesday, February 21, 2023:
Heart of Winter Event: Via Creativa, with the Element of Earth
Co-hosted by Creation Care Alliance
In the winter, even as the natural world looks so lifeless, there is also the reality that creative things are going on which we cannot see. Sap is rising in the trees which look dead, and bulbs and seeds are swelling under the ground which looks barren. We, too, are invited to seek, in the words of Matthew Fox, "the fertile moments in our lives when we find creative expression, and put words to our joy and suffering of our existence. Freeing creativity helps us to move beyond our sorrow or stagnation." In this moment, the climate crisis certainly looks bleak — the damage which has been done is “baked in” to the future — this is true. And yet, there is an extraordinary amount of creativity, and life force, alive and working to save what can be saved, and to mitigate the effects of rising temperatures, sea level rise, massive migrations, and other profound effects of the climate crisis.
Considering the element of earth, we are reminded this element is both something which contributes to climate change — because of the way it has been treated, in extractive and exploitative ways — and yet also holds great potential to be a factor in addressing climate change, when understood and treated with respect.
Together, we hold the space for both mourning and discovery, sorrow and inspiration.
