Meeting 9th October

The theme for this meeting was "Letting Go" and involved a few changes to the format, beginning with being in a different room for this week.

We welcomed new and returning members and celebrated a birthday.  Then Neesa led us in some Sufi breathing exercises (see meeting on 10th October ).  Jenna led us in two songs, one of which was "The River is Flowing" with an extra chant sung over it:

The river is flowing, flowing and growing,
The river is flowing back to the sea.
Mother Earth carry me, your child I will always be.
Mother Earth carry me back to the sea.

/The heart is the start and the end, my friend.  The heart is the start and the end./


Peter, having let go of the need to write a poem, read instead an extract from Wild Geese by Mary Oliver, and from Rumi.

The activity was led by Judy Clinton and was a creative writing exercise where we wrote as fast as we could for six minutes on "Letting go".  The need to write quickly and without stopping frees you from critical thought getting in the way and perhaps allows feelings to be expressed more easily.  We discussed our experience and what we had learnt both from what we had written and the process.

We danced to a song based on a quote by Meister Eckhart:
A seed of God grows into God,
Let yourself go; let God be God in you.


Jehanne and Rob sang two Autumn songs for us, "Shooting Stars" and "Stop the World, I want to get on".

Then we ended as usual with gathering around the centre and singing "This little heart of mine".

Notices:

True Stories told Live will be held on Friday 11th November, Friday 9th December at Star Anise at 7.30pm.

If you enjoyed the creative writing exercise, take a look at Judy's website
and find the details of a workshop on 5th November.

Meeting 11th September

Today's theme was Green Spirituality, but as it was also the 10 year anniversary of 9/11, we started with a poem from Jehanne she had composed after the event.

After September the 11th
( For the survivors everywhere )

We do not know
how it is for you
in the terrible beginnings
of rebirth
out of the mouth of loss;
but in the search for peace
your pain is sovereign.
There are no fances left to sit on;
the choice is clear:
do we walk the way of love
or the way of fear?

Jehanne Mehta


Then we followed Neesa in the body prayer "All of Creation";

All of Creation feeds my soul.
Every leaf and every tree feeds my soul.
The sun and the stars feed my soul.
All creatures of the land, tha air and the sea feed my soul.
Everyone I meet feeds my soul.
And I grow strong and wise.

Then we sang "Blessings on the Blossom";

Blessings on the blossom,
Blessings on the fruit,
Blessings on the leaf and stem,
Blessings on the root.

Peter read us his poem The Tree of Life;

The Tree of Life [Or Preaching The Green Gospel]

God is mysterious and beyond our knowing
And god is so present her beauty is showing:
God’s a far way thing we can only believe in,
And god is so near we can see and feel him.

God is creation and is still creating
All the potential that is ready and waiting:
We make god a problem not a solution:
God is working through our evolution.

God speaks in the bible and the Koran
And in the heart of every woman and man;
God came down from heaven to earth
And comes down still in every spring and birth.

We might see god from our towers of belief
And we might smell god in the soil underneath;
God is an experience we live inside,
Not something we have to believe with our minds.

God is alive in the biosphere
Birds are angels whose song we can hear;
And if our damage to nature goes on
We cut the branch of god we are hanging from.



We meditated on what is God / The Divine and shared our thoughts on connectedness, the indescribable nature of God and treating the Earth as sacred.

Neesa led us in a dance;

The Earth is our Mother, we must take care of Her.
The Earth is our Mother, we must take care of Her.
Hey yana ho yana hey yan yan.
Hey yana ho yana hey yan yan.
Her sacred ground we walk upon with every step we take.
Her sacred ground we walk upon with every step we take.
Hey yana ho yana hey yan yan.
Hey yana ho yana hey yan yan.

Then Rob and Jehanne sang two songs, "Emblem" and "People of the Earth".  Finally we gathered around the candles in the centre and sang "This little heart of mine".

Announcements

Next month we will be in a different room, in the Museum of Science and Art opposite the library on Lansdown.

Spirit of Peace:

Monday 12th September 7pm, Friendship Cafe, Barton Street, Gloucester GL1 4HR

Manal Timraz, Palestinian restaurant owner and peace activist, will speak on how and why she still works for peace in the face of deep personal loss.
Admission is free, but please bring some food to share (without meat or alcohol).


Monday 10th October 7pm, Ribston High School, Stroud Road, Gloucester GL1 5LE

Space to Reflect - a "vigil" including times of silence, prayer, reflection and meditation along with the opportunity to share thoughts and readings.  You are invited to bring an object, picture, poem or reading which has meaning and may serve as a focal point.

A few pictures

Meeting 10th July

Today's meeting was the last of the "year"; there will be a break in August and the Celebration of Life will resume on September 11th.

The theme for today was Community.  We began with a reading of Peter's poem "Welcome to the gathering".  Then we repeated the Rahde Bo dance we did at the end of last month's session.  We sang a song in a round:

Good friends when gathered together
Sing for the joy of singing
No matter what the weather
Good friends are happy together.

Then Peter read one of the poems we had formed as a community, Instructions to the Sleeping Self (13th March), and we then took turns to read a line each.

We then shared our thoughts and readings on Community.

Judy read "God's dream" by Charles Peguy:

I myself will dream a dream within you,
Good dreaming comes from me, you know.
My dreams seem impossible,
not too practical nor for the cautious man or woman;
a little risky sometimes,
a trifle brash perhaps.
Some of my friends prefer to rest more comfortably
in sounder sleep with visionless eyes.
But from those who share my dreams
I ask a little patience,
a little humor,
some small courage,
and a listening heart – I will do the rest.
Then they will risk and wonder at their daring;
run, and marvel at their speed;
build, and stand in awe
at the beauty of their building.
You will meet me often
as you work in your companions who share the risk,
in your friends who believe in you
enough to lend their own dreams,
their own hands,
their own hearts,
to your building.
In the people who will stand in your doorway,
stay awhile
And walk away knowing that they too can find a dream.
There will be sun-filled days
And sometimes a little rain –
a little variety both come from me.
So come now, be content.
It is my dream you dream,
my house you build,
my caring you witness;
my love you share
And this is the heart of the matter.

Beth read:
If one head could hold the knowledge of a thousand decades past,
If one pair of hands could master every trade and every craft,
If one mind could so inspire itself to never cease to grow,
If one heart could be so close to God it never felt alone,
Perhaps then, just perhaps, there would no longer be
A need for this thing we call community.

Carol read a quote by J.S. Bach comparing community to the process of making music in a group:

"In the architecture of my music I want to demonstrate to the world the architecture of a new and beautiful social commonwealth.  The secret of my harmony?  I alone know it.  Each instrument is counterpoint and as many contrapuntal parts as there are instruments.  It is the enlightening self-discipline of the various parts, each voluntarily imposing on itself the limits of its individual freedom for the wellbeing of the community.  This is my message.  Not the autocracy of a single stubborn melody on the one hand.  Or the anarchy of unchecked noise on the other.  No, a delicate balance between the two: an enlightened freedom.  The harmony of the stars in the heavens, the yearning for brotherhood in the heart of man.  This is the secret of my music."
Johann Sebastian Bach.


Jehanne read her poem "No Reference Points":

Along with those, so many now,
whose letting go unravels their age
in a sudden burst of birth,
old memories are leaving,
rising from their comfortable armchairs,
no longer needing their structures,
books, potted plants,
their things,
moments fixed in black, white and sepia.
Old memories are passng through a curtain
of fine rain,
over a threshold
into light.
Even yesterday dissolves
beyond recall.

Who are you, am I, are we,
without them?
Shapeless, immaterial, unmortal,
a consciousness without reference points?

We are nothing special,
forerunners perhaps,
trailing songs like ribbons in the wind?

Thrown from our familiar mounts,
bruised, open, becoming incipient points of shine,
we meet a portal into an unborn world,
a glow, a warmth, no material boundaries,
we are one to one, one into one,
no separation …
heralds of the sun?

Heart to heart here,
unbelievably, first time,
we are one another.

Jehanne 23.06.2011.


In her absence, Jane sent an invitation to experience the community of Springhill Cohousing ( see www.cohousing.org.uk/springhill-cohousing or www.therightplace.net/coco/public/ to find out more).

Then Neesa led another dance:

I am with you that I might heal,
You are with me that you might heal.
We are together that we might heal,
We are healing that we might love.

Jehanne and Rob played the beautiful "This Place" (see 9th January) while we gathered around the central candle.  We finished by singing This Little Heart of Mine.

A message from one of our members

I've been coming to Celebration of Life for nearly as long as it has been running. I guess that is a testimony in itself to what it is, but after today's wonderful gathering I felt that I wanted to express my gratitude in writing.

I am so pleased that those who had the vision for what we do together had the courage, the talents and the determination to turn what was a good idea into the reality that it has become, and continues to become As a facilitator and organiser myself, I know what an enormous amount of dedication it takes to keep something going, to keep it alive and to do the sheer donkey-work involved – I thank you all. I also give my thanks to the people who turn up month after month and respond to what is put before us with such openness and vulnerability. In that safe space that we have come to trust, we have the opportunity to reveal who we truly are without the need for the masks that society as a whole so often requires of us - that is a gift indeed.

As someone who has been involved in religious groups over the years with such firm ways of doing things, and usually with an equally firmly set bureaucratic structure behind it, it is a joy indeed to come to something that is so simple (in the nicest possible sense!) Without the strangle-hold of an established institution (however benign) we have the pleasure of coming together without any expectations or great responsibility – that freedom is like a breath of fresh air.

Another joy is to share in deeply meaningful songs, dances, activities, prayers etc. that come from all sorts of spiritual traditions, excluding no one and building understanding across the ether and the world. How much how world needs that now, and how marvellous it is that we can all be a part of it.

From such a coming together, we do indeed sow seeds of love (as the dance today was worded) both in the interactions that we have within the gatherings themselves and as a result of them. New friendships are forming and they are of significance, started in that depth of sharing together spiritually. I have the sense that as time goes on great things will grow forth from these connections.

Once more, I thank you all and look forward to our next time together.

with love

Judy Clinton

Meeting 12th June

Today's theme was Hope.

We began with a short body prayer, and a reading by Neesa of a Rumi poem, The Guest House.

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Then we sang two songs; Door of my Heart and Into His Presence;

Door of my heart, open wide I keep for thee.
Wilt thou come, wilt thou come, in this moment come to me?
Night and day, night and day, I look for you night and day.

Into His Presence would I enter now.
Into Her Presence would I enter now.
Into The Presence would I enter now.


Peter read a poem on hope.

No-one Is An Island

In the back of my mind there are people drowning and crying for help
And people dying of thirst:
I try not to hear them.
My comfortable world is built on denial:
So my joys are bordered with sorrow
And my security is undermined by fear.
Joy is shallow and brittle
And comes only from great determination
Or from climbing paradoxes in a mystical way.
But if I accept the catastrophes behind me
My fear feels validated and safe
And agrees to behave in public:
It becomes a horse saddled with hope
That I ride into the future.
Let’s ride together, you and I
Like Indians and cowboys, together and equal
Righting wrongs, repairing the world, preventing disasters;
There’s really nothing else worth doing.


Then we did an activity where we got in touch with our despair and offered each other hope.  We each wrote or drew a representation of our despair, either personal or on a global theme.  Then we went around the circle either voicing our despair or just placing our drawing in the centre of the room, and responded to each person's sharing by reading out the words of hope we had been given.

Then we did two dances;

Between darkness and light I will always walk
And in every place that I walk
I will open a window of light
And plant a seed of love
I will open a window of light
And plant a seed of love

where we walked around and met with each other to share the "window of light" and "seed of love". 
Then we did a more joyful and energetic song about the love between Krishna (Govinda) and Radhe;

Radhe, Radhe, Radhe Govinda Bolo
Radhe, Radhe, Radhe Govinda Bolo
Govinda, Govinda, Govinda
Govinda, Govinda, Govinda
Radhe Bo, Radhe Bo, Radhe Bo, Radhe Bo
Radhe, Radhe
Radhe Bo, Radhe Bo, Radhe Bo, Radhe Bo

We finished by gathering around the centre and singing "This little Heart of mine".

Meeting 8th May

Today's theme was Gratitude.  And as some of our regular contributors were away this weekend, we were very grateful to our guest Daniel for leading us in some songs.

We began with a poem on the theme of gratitude, "I Thank Thee" by Monica Miller.  Then I spoke of the theme of gratitude in the Christian, Islamic and Jewish traditions, and read a short piece by Robert Frager (which can be found on the website Spirituality and Practice).  Then we sang:
For sun and rain,
For grass and grain,
For all who toil on sea and soil
That we may eat our daily food
To you our love and thanks we give.

Daniel led us in a song "Hakuna mungu kama wewe / There is no one like Jesus".  Then Peter read his poem:

Gratitude

I pray that I may be grateful
For all the things I take for granted.
No; I say that I am already grateful
For everything in my life.
For the four damp walls of this old house,
For my imperfect partner who abides with my imperfection,
For that ten pound note in my wallet,
For the gift of air.
I am even grateful for my ingratitude;
Discontentedness makes me start new things.
I wrap ingratitude, grumpiness,
And the whole world in a cloth of light,
And wrap my grateful aching arms
Around that mixed lumpy bundle
Of trouble and delight.


Eve led us in an activity.  We thought of something we felt grateful for (we were encouraged to think of something individual to us), then went around the circle speaking what we had written, with everyone joining in after each: "And all our hearts expand with yours, in gratitude we come together".

For the mysterious magic of each awakening and the days passing into night.
I feel grateful for all that I have in my life that has helped me to cope with my life, especially the kind, loving support of  people and animals, especially after my mother has died, to help me to feel less alone.
I am grateful for the breath the Lord gives me to live day by day, minute and second.
I am grateful for the lessons of love I have learnt from friends.
I am feeling grateful for the people who came into my life who enabled me to grow into wisdom and understanding.
Gratitude for the flowering cow parsley and hawthorn along the lanes whilst out walking with friends.
I feel so grateful for the immense beauty, joy and expansion of my heart when I remember to stop from busyness and to breathe and sink into being.
I am grateful for young children who want to come and play.
I am grateful for time, space and energy to create a beautiful living environment that feels right for me.
I feel grateful for beauty in nature, music and song, and for joy in Dance - and for the difficulties too.
I am thankful for the rising of the sun every morning, when the sky gets brighter and the warmth comes back again.
I am grateful for my wife and daughters who are teaching me how to love.

Then we danced to "From you I receive, to you I give, together we share, by this we live".  We then had some space to share our thoughts; Harsha shared with us a saying she had heard, "Life is God's gift to you; what you do with it is your gift to God".  Daniel led us in singing again, then we gathered around the centre and I read a story about the Jewish violinist Perlman (you can read it on the website Jewish Pathways).  Finally we sang "This little heart of mine".

The next meeting will be June 12th.