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Nina Simons on Nature, Culture, the Sacred, and Feminine Leadership

posted by Kyle in Podcast

Nina Simons is an activist, author, social entrepreneur, and the co-founder of Bioneers, a nonprofit organization committed to social and environmental justice work that honors the web of life, now and into the future. In this conversation, Nina reflects on how feminine and indigenous leadership are crucial paths for cultural and ecological regeneration.

RESOURCES:

Earth & Spirit Center: www.earthandspiritcenter.org

Donate to support this podcast: https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/donate/

Nina’s website: https://www.ninasimons.com/

Nina’s new book, Nature, Culture & The Sacred: A Woman Listens for Leadership, 2nd edition: https://www.ninasimons.com/writing

Bioneers website: https://bioneers.org/

Creation Spirituality

posted by Kyle in Blog
One of the great blessings of hosting the Earth & Spirit NPR Podcast is the chance to have deep conversations with some absolutely amazing leaders in the areas of spiritualty, social justice, and Earth care. I recently had just such a conversation with Matthew Fox (check out the episode here), a wonderfully cantankerous spiritual teacher and prolific author of 39 books.
 
Among the many topics Matthew and I covered, we spent a lot of time talking about Creation Spirituality, which rests on the assumption that divinity (by many names and understandings) permeates the world and can be experienced through spiritual practice. Creation Spirituality has four main paths: the positive path of awe, gratitude, and joy; the negative path of darkness, doubt, suffering, and letting go; the creative path of birthing beauty in its many forms; and the transformative path of justice-making, compassion, and healing our relationships with other people and the planet.
 
I find great resonance with these four paths, which also hew closely to the Earth & Spirit Center’s mission commitments to spiritual practice, social justice, and Earth care. Many days, feelings of wonder and gratitude come quite easily to me. Others I feel disconnected, dry, and full of doubt. Still others I feel most spiritually alive not on my meditation cushion but in the hustle-bustle of efforts to create a better and more beautiful world.
 
Creation Spirituality reminds me that the difficult times don’t have to be obstacles to spiritual practice, but can and should part and parcel of it – and that authentic spirituality absolutely requires active, deep engagement with the messy needs of our beautiful and hurting world. Also, spiritual practice and spiritual experiences vary daily and evolve over time: as the world changes, as our circumstances change, as we change and grow. Set-it-and-forget-it cruise control isn’t really an option for those on a genuine path of spiritual seeking. I hope that the Earth & Spirit Center can support you as you walk the many paths of your spiritual journey.
 
Take care,
Kyle Kramer, CEO

Matthew Fox on Creation Spirituality and Original Blessing

posted by Kyle in Podcast

Matthew Fox is an author, theologian, and activist Episcopal priest whose radical interfaith work attempts to reawaken us to the sacredness of the created world. In this conversation, Matthew reflects on how creation-centered spirituality, and the marriage of the divine feminine and sacred masculine, can help us respond with hope to the troubles of our apocalyptic times.

RESOURCES:

Earth & Spirit Center website: https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/

Donate to support this podcast: https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/donate/

Matthew will be in Louisville, KY at the annual Festival of Faiths, November 9 – 12.  https://festivaloffaiths.org/

Websites related to Matthew’s work:

http://www.matthewfox.org

http://www.thecosmicmass.com

http://www.orderofthesacredearth.org

http://www.dailymeditationswithmatthewfox.org

Stephen Jenkinson on Grief and Belonging in Troubled Times

posted by Kyle in Podcast

Stephen Jenkinson is a Harvard-trained author, activist, farmer, sculptor, and canoe-builder who has worked in his native Canada as a palliative care provider for dying people and their families. In this challenging conversation, Stephen reflects on the deep roots of our troubled times and on how rich and full human belonging – in one’s life, one’s culture, one’s place – means letting go of our drive for autonomy to embrace the beauty of our limits.

RESOURCES:

Donate to support this podcast at https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/

Stephen’s website: https://orphanwisdom.com/

Stephen’s latest book (with Kimberly Ann Johnson), Reckoning: https://orphanwisdom.com/reckoning/

Stephen’s Nights of Grief and Mystery 2022 Tour: https://orphanwisdom.com/nights-of-grief-and-mystery/.

 

Resonance

posted by Kyle in Blog
Earlier this month, the Earth & Spirit Center took part in the Louisville Resonant City Peace Project, part of the larger Global Peaceful Cities Project. I served on the planning committee for a time and did an interview about the project for the Earth and Spirit Podcast. The project leaders chose a specific focus area in Louisville, gathered enough meditators from across the city (and beyond) to equal a certain minimum percentage of that area’s population, and facilitated 20-minute guided daily meditations for 11 days, with the intention of reducing crime and violence in that area by at least 25%. It is a double-blind research study, so none of the meditators knew what part of Louisville was the focus area. Number-crunching PhD statisticians will now be analyzing Louisville crime data to see if there is a correlative reduction in crime. 
 
This project is based on the conviction – subjected to scientific scrutiny – that meditation can have tangible effects beyond just the individual meditator and her own behaviors. A musical analogy explains it best. I’m a guitarist, and even without my touching the strings, my guitar can vibrate sympathetically in response to tones of my voice or other instruments, when those frequencies match the guitar tuning. Similarly, it may be possible for there to be resonance and amplification of shared, focused prayerful and meditative intentions for the peace and well-being of others – such that there are tangible correlative effects. I don’t pretend to comprehend that, but in a world of interdependent quantum entanglement (I love Einstein’s phrase, “spooky action at a distance”), it certainly doesn’t seem implausible. I certainly like the idea of resonating with others who share common intentions for good.
 
The point, which we’ve emphasized since opening our doors in 2005, is that meditation is never just a private pastime. It can and should have ripple effects – resonance! – far beyond yourself. As always, we’re here to help and support you as you tune up, center down, and join the symphony.  
 
Take care,
Kyle Kramer, CEO

Resonance: Bethany Gonyea on the Personal and Collective Impact of Mass Meditation Events

posted by Kyle in Podcast

Bethany Gonyea is the founder of Numinous, a nonprofit that facilitates interfaith spiritual practices to reduce human suffering. In this conversation, Bethany shares about her work in creating mass meditation events aimed at reducing crime and violence in specific geographic areas (in statistically verifiable ways), as well as bringing benefits to the meditators themselves.

RESOURCES:

Earth & Spirit Center homepage: https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/

Numinous homepage: https://numinousonline.com/

Global Peaceful Cities Project: https://www.peacefulcities.org/

Bethany’s book: Become a Consciousness Athlete: A Step by Step Program to Heighten Consciousness for Daily Happiness

Zen and the Art of Living and Dying Well: Justin Magnuson on Facing Death and Living Life with Courage and Clarity

posted by Kyle in Podcast

Justin Magnuson is a Zen Buddhist who works with the elderly and terminally ill. In this episode, Justin reflects on how approaching death and dying with intention can be an invitation to a fuller way of living.

RESOURCES:

Earth & Spirit Center: https://www.earthandspiritcenter.org/

University of Louisville Trager Institute and Republic Bank Foundation Optimal Aging Clinic: https://www.tragerinstitute.org/

Roots and Wings?

posted by Kyle in Blog
Recently, the tectonic plates of our family life shifted as our oldest children, our dear twin daughters Eva and Clare, began their freshman year of college. We settled them into their dorm room, floated home on a lake of tears, and began processing what this change will mean for our family life. 
 
They say that a parent’s job is to give their kids roots and wings: a good upbringing and a solid foundation of support, and the ability to go their own way as adults. My wife Cyndi, however, thinks that analogy isn’t quite right, and I agree with her. Our kids certainly need roots, and we worked hard to create a safe, supportive environment in which they could grow up. But wings? Self-determination and mature adulthood, of course. Wings, however, implies that your kids’ leaving is the point of raising them, and while I don’t want our kids living jobless in our basement in their 30s, neither does it seem a given that they should just fly away to their own entirely separate lives. There are plenty of other cultural models and expectations for intergenerational family life that don’t at all conform to the roots-and-wings idea.
 
I’m much more drawn to the analogy of roots and branches. Branches do go their own unique way, seeking the light. But they also stay connected, both nourishing and being nourished by the trunk and roots. Or even better, I like Dr. Suzanne Simard’s image of the mother tree, nurturing the nearby younger trees – her own offspring and even other species – all of them woven together in a complex underground mycelial network of exchange.  To me, these images seem so much more true to what we are coming to understand about interdependence – whether in family systems, ecosystems, or quantum entanglement. 
 
Whatever the analogy, the point is this: we’re made for groundedness, connection, and freedom – all constantly interacting and evolving with each other as our circumstances change. When you think about it, those three qualities are the fruit of meditative practice, as well. Mindfulness can ground us in present-moment experience amidst the storms of life and the chattering of our ego. With mindfulness, we can experience the world through a lens of non-duality, helping us see that we all belong to each other. And mindfulness gives us the freedom to act with skill and wisdom, rather than compulsion and reactivity.  
 
In a few days, we’ll begin our fall meditation classes at the Earth & Spirit Center – a perfect place to get grounded, stay connected, and grow in freedom. We hope to see you, and we’d also be deeply grateful if you’d share these opportunities with those you know, to help us regather and grow our community after COVID-19. Thanks so much!
 
Take care,
Kyle Kramer, CEO

We Come from Oneness: Musician Peter Mayer on Love, Creativity, and the Evolving Cosmos

posted by Kyle in Podcast

Peter Mayer is a singer and songwriter whose music reflects a profound love of the world, as we’re coming to understand it through the new story science tells us about our place in the 14-billion-year-unfolding of our universe. This conversation reflects on science, spiritual practice, social justice, and environmental care, all animated by a sense of our belonging to deep history, to each other, and to the entire cosmos.

 

RESOURCES:

Peter’s website: https://www.petermayer.net/

Earth & Spirit Center: www.earthandspiritcenter.org

From the Archives – Like River Stones: Zen and the Art of Community, with Jeanette Prince-Cherry

posted by Kyle in Podcast

Jeanette Prince-Cherry had careers in the Air Force and as an industrial engineer before dedicating her life to Zen Buddhism. A Zen priest and instructor, she divides her time between the Louisville Zen Center and the Rochester Zen Center in New York. In this episode, Jeanette explains the basics of Zen, how it is similar to and different from secular mindfulness, and how it provides tools and resources for mental health, resilience, and the strengthening of communities, especially in a post-pandemic world. This episode is from the archives and was originally released July 31, 2021.

RESOURCES

Earth & Spirit Center homepage: www.earthandspiritcenter.org

Louisville Zen Center homepage: https://www.louisvillezen.org/

Rochester Zen Center homepage: https://www.rzc.org/