Download or read book Poetry as Spiritual Practice written by Robert McDowell and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-07-15 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "[When we read and write poetry,] it is as if a long-settled cloud in our mind suddenly dissipates, and we are divine once again." -- from the Introduction Poetry is the language of devotion in prayer, chant, and song. Reading and writing poetry creates clarity, deepens and expands spiritual inquiry, and cultivates wisdom, compassion, self-confidence, patience, and love. In author Robert McDowell's words, poetry makes you into a tuning fork of the Divine. But poetry has disappeared over the centuries from religious ceremonies, academic curricula, and public discourse. In Poetry as Spiritual Practice, the first inspirational and instructional guide to combine poetry and spirituality, McDowell restores poetry as the natural language of spiritual practice and invites you to recognize poetry as "the pure sound and shape of your spirit." Vividly illustrated with a wide range of poems from all historical eras and poetic traditions, numerous religions and faiths, and McDowell's own and his students' work, Poetry as Spiritual Practice will reintroduce you to the unique pleasure of verse. And meditations throughout will allow you to integrate reading and writing poetry into your spiritual journeys and daily life. Since many of us have long forgotten, or never learned, the mechanics and terminology of poetry -- trochaic feet and tropes trip us up; we can't tell a villanelle from its shorter cousin, rondeau; and a terza rima may as well be a tanka -- this is also an instructional handbook on reading and writing poetry. An engaging guide through the landscape of world poetry, McDowell argues along the way for the many practical benefits of poetic literacy. Making poetry an essential part of daily rituals, aspirations, and intentions will put you on the path to greater meaning, growth, and peace in your life. At once an engaging technical primer, a profound meditation on the relationship between poetry and the Divine, and an inspirational guide for integrating poetry into spiritual practice, Poetry as Spiritual Practice will become a cherished companion.
Download or read book The Dharma of Poetry written by John Brehm and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-01-26 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discover how to engage with poetry to support your spiritual practice, leading to more mindfulness, equanimity, and joy. In The Dharma of Poetry, John Brehm shows how poems can open up new ways of thinking, feeling, and being in the world. Brehm demonstrates the practice of mindfully entering a poem, with an alertness, curiosity, and open-hearted responsiveness very much like the attention we cultivate in meditation. Complete with poetry-related meditations and writing prompts, this collection of lively, elegantly written essays can be read as a standalone book, or as a companion to the author’s acclaimed anthology, The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy.
Download or read book Poetry As a Spiritual Practice written by Catherine Ghosh and published by . This book was released on 2016-06-20 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this reflective collection of personal essays, poems and meditations, fifty women illuminate the powerful role poetry plays in unleashing their spirits. Juxtaposing the waxing and waning of the moon phases, with cycles of concealing and revealing their own voices, the authors tap into an ancient theme to explore the mystical experience of birthing a poem. What is it about the unique nature of poetry that draws fullness of expression from female hearts?How do poems become conduits to what is most sacred within us?This third book to emerge from the "Journey of the Heart Poetry Project" lifts the veil on these, and other mysterious subjects, surrounding women who spontaneously engage poetry writing as part of their spiritual practice.All proceeds from the book will be donated to a nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering women to express themselves through writing.
Download or read book The Spiritual Poems of Rumi written by Rumi and published by Wellfleet Press. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 131 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Spiritual Poems of Rumi is a beautiful and elegantly illustrated gift book of Rumi's spiritual poems translated by Nader Khalili, geared for readers searching for a stronger spiritual core.
Download or read book Music of the Sky written by Patrick Laude and published by World Wisdom, Inc. This book was released on 2004 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The short poems in this book reflect the spiritual insights of some of the greatest poets, saints, and sages know to Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Islamic, and Native American traditions.
Download or read book Everyday Spiritual Practice written by Scott W. Alexander and published by Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. This book was released on 1999 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have you wondered, "How do I integrate my heartfelt beliefs into my daily life?" Nearly 40 contributors address this creative dilemma and share their discoveries. Creating a home altar, practicing martial arts, fasting, quilting -- these are just some of the ways they've found to make every day more meaningful and satisfying.
Download or read book The Poetry of Impermanence Mindfulness and Joy written by John Brehm and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-06-06 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over 125 poetic companions, from Basho to Billy Collins, Saigyo to Shakespeare. The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy received the Spirituality & Practice Book Award for 50 Best Spiritual Books in 2017 by Spirituality and Practice Website. The poems expertly gathered here offer all that one might hope for in spiritual companionship: wisdom, compassion, peacefulness, good humor, and the ability to both absorb and express the deepest human emotions of grief and joy. The book includes a short essay on “Mindful Reading” and a meditation on sound from editor John Brehm—helping readers approach the poems from an experiential, non-analytical perspective and enter into the mindful reading of poetry as a kind of meditation. The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy offers a wide-ranging collection of 129 ancient and modern poems unlike any other anthology on bookshelves today. It uniquely places Buddhist poets like Han Shan, Tu Fu, Saigyo, Ryokan, Basho, Issa, and others alongside modern Western poets one would not expect to find in such a collection—poets like Wallace Stevens, Robert Frost, Elizabeth Bishop, William Stafford, Denise Levertov, Jack Gilbert, Ellen Bass, Billy Collins, and more. What these poems have in common, no matter whether they are explicitly Buddhist, is that all reflect the essential truths the Buddha articulated 2,500 years ago. The book provides an important poetic complement to the many prose books on mindfulness practice—the poems here both reflect and embody the dharma in ways that can’t be matched by other modes of writing. It’s unique features include an introduction that discusses the themes of impermanence, mindfulness, and joy and explores the relationship between them. Biographical notes place the poets in historical context and offer quotes and anecdotes to help readers learn about the poets’ lives.
Download or read book How the Light Gets In written by Pat Schneider and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2013-04-25 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "When I begin to write, I open myself and wait. And when I turn toward an inner spiritual awareness, I open myself and wait." With that insight, Pat Schneider invites readers to contemplate their lives and deepest questions through writing. In seventeen concise thematic chapters that include meditations on topics such as fear, freedom, tradition in writing and in religions, forgiveness, joy, social justice, and death, How the Light Gets In gracefully guides readers through the artistic and spiritual questions that life offers to everyone. Praised as a "fuse lighter" by author Julia Cameron and "the wisest teacher of writing I know" by the celebrated writing guru Peter Elbow, Pat Schneider has lived a life of writing and teaching, passion and compassion. With How the Light Gets In, she delves beyond the typical "how-to's" of writing to offer an extended rumination on two inner paths, and how they can run as one. Schneider's book is distinct from the many others in the popular spirituality and creative writing genre by virtue of its approach, using one's lived experience--including the experience of writing--as a springboard for expressing the often ineffable events that define everyday life. Her belief that writing about one's own life leads to greater consciousness, satisfaction, and wisdom energizes the book and carries the reader elegantly through difficult topics. As Schneider writes, "All of us live in relation to mystery, and becoming conscious of that relationship can be a beginning point for a spiritual practice--whether we experience mystery in nature, in ecstatic love, in the eyes of our children, our friends, the animals we love, or in more strange experiences of intuition, synchronicity, or prescience."
Download or read book Love Poems from God written by Various and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2002-09-24 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sacred poetry from twelve mystics and saints, rendered brilliantly by Daniel Ladinsky, beloved interpreter of verses by the fourteenth-century Persian poet Hafiz One of 6 Books Oprah Loves to Give as Gifts During the Holidays “All kinds of beautiful poetry.” –Hoda Kotb In this luminous collection, Daniel Ladinsky—best known for his bestselling interpretations of the great Sufi poet Hafiz—brings together the timeless work of twelve of the world’s finest spiritual writers, six from the East and six from the West. Once again, Ladinsky reveals his talent for creating profound and playful renditions of classic poems for a modern audience. Rumi’s joyous, ecstatic love poems; St. Francis’s loving observations of nature through the eyes of Catholicism; Kabir’s wild, freeing humor that synthesizes Hindu, Muslim, and Christian beliefs; St. Teresa’s sensual verse; and the mystical, healing words of Sufi poet Hafiz—these along with inspiring works by Rabia, Meister Eckhart, St. Thomas Aquinas, Mira, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, and Tukaram are all “love poems by God” from writers considered “conduits of the divine.” Together, they form a spiritual treasure to cherish always.
Download or read book Ascension written by Giovanni Singleton and published by Counterpath Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 95 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Poetry. In this diary of intentionality, the behearer and the beholder approach the world with an attitude of longing—for less: less sorrow, less suffering. Daily practice delivers the speaker to profound meditations on the nature of the self. These poems press against our deepest held questions: what is an I? Where are my borders? What or how am I "with"? "From whom—from what—do we hide?" "This little book of few words is immense in its silences, depths of ambiguity, range of feeling—dark, light, umber, copper, sienna—full of strange inward jottings (graphically adventurous) that echo and dance in a reader's mind. ASCENSION's quiet absences are fully, passionately, present—you can almost hear the music the title suggests, and the loss and wonder that goes with it"—Norman Fischer.
Download or read book Voices of Light written by Aliki Barnstone and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 1999 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though often deprived of public position, women have long practiced the personal art of writing and so have been prepared to be our spiritual and visionary voices of light."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book Dreaming of Stones written by Christine Valters Paintner and published by Paraclete Press. This book was released on 2019-03-01 with total page 129 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The poems in Dreaming of Stones are about what endures: hope and desire, changing seasons, wild places, love, and the wisdom of mystics. Inspired by the poet’s time living in Ireland these readings invite you into deeper ways of seeing the world. They have an incantational quality. Drawing on her commitment as a Benedictine oblate, the poems arise out of a practice of sitting in silence and lectio divina, in which life becomes the holy text. No stranger to poetry, Paintner’s bestselling spirituality titles have often included poems. In this first exclusively poetic collection, she writes with a contemplative heart about kinship with nature, ancestral connections, intimacy, the landscape, the unfolding nature of time, and Christian mystics. It can be read for reflection to spark the heart and to offer solace and inspiration in difficult times. Breath This breathing in is a miracle, this breathing out, release, this breathing in a welcome to the unseen gifts which sustain me each moment, this breathing out a sweet sigh, a bow to my mortality, this breathing in a holy yes to life, this breathing out a sacred no to all that causes me to clench and grasp, this breathing in is a revelation, this breathing out, freedom.
Download or read book Haiku the Sacred Art written by Margaret D. McGee and published by SkyLight Paths Publishing. This book was released on 2009 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this encouraging guide for both beginning and experienced haiku writers, Margaret D. McGee shows how writing haiku can be a consciously spiritual practice for seekers of any faith tradition or no tradition.
Download or read book Rumi s Four Essential Practices written by Will Johnson and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2010-01-19 with total page 89 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Poems and commentary that open the door for a new generation to experience the ecstatic and embodied spiritual truths contained in Rumi’s poetry • Reveals how the four practices of eating lightly, breathing deeply, moving freely, and gazing intently can invoke the divinity within us all • Explains how these practices dissolve the self’s need for identity so that we may experience a state of transcendent ecstasy and union with the divine • Takes Rumi’s path to finding God from theoretical to embodied practices The great thirteenth-century Sufi mystic and poet Jalaluddin Rumi began his life as an orthodox Islamic believer but felt that to fully experience complete union with the divine he must abandon institutionalized religion and its prescribed forms of worship. Surrendering his will to his overriding urge for a much more immediate, intuitive, and compelling union with the divine, he found that by manipulating certain behavioral aspects of his physiology--eating lightly, breathing deeply, moving freely, and gazing raptly--he was capable of loosening the rigid confines of the self, thereby overriding its limitations and achieving a transcendent merging with his own divinity. His message is simple: if you wish to affect the spirit, you must first make changes in the way your body responds to the world. Through clearly written commentary interspersed with Rumi’s beautiful poems, this book details these four practices in a very precise way. As such, it is a sweet and open invitation to follow the examples set forth in order to embark upon one’s own path of inner illumination. The freshness of Rumi’s poetry dissolves the 700 years that separate his life from our own time, making his message as pertinent today as when he walked the streets of Konya, Anatolia (present-day Turkey), reciting his inspiring verse. This book allows us, through Rumi’s gentle guidance, to touch the face of God that resides deep within us all.
Download or read book Writing to Wake the Soul written by Karen Hering and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-11-05 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through the power of everyday words, find and deepen your connection with faith and self in the spiritual practice of writing. Whether you approach this book primarily as a reader or a writer, you can open a rich correspondence with yourself and learn what your own heart has to say. Karen Hering offers a path of self-exploration and a contemplative practice of writing that engages memory and imagination, story and poetry, images and the timeless wisdom of world religions and myth-ology. It will open your ear to your own truths while opening your heart to the world around you. Blending writing prompts, meditations, and stories, this book invites you to begin wherever you are and discover your own unique relationship with language, spirituality, and the world around you. The next chapter is yours to write, and Writing to Wake the Soul offers all you need to write it.
Download or read book Lost Found written by Taher Adel and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sometimes only words could unveil truths that we have forgotten Sometimes only letters can pierce through shields that we hide behind Sometimes only sentences written at the depth of night can bring forth light Sometimes only poetry can heal the wounds that life leaves behind (Taher Adel)
Download or read book Poetic Theology written by William A. Dyrness and published by Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. This book was released on 2011 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What are the poetics of everyday life ? What can they teach us about God? Art, music, dance, and writing can certainly be poetic, but so can such diverse pastimes as fishing, skiing, or attending sports events. Any and all activities that satisfy our fundamental need for play, for celebration, and for ritual, says William Dyrness, are inherently poetic and in Poetic Theology he demonstrates that all such activities are places where God is active in the world. All of humanity s creative efforts, Dyrness points out, testify to our intrinsic longing for joy and delight and our deep desire to connect with others, with the created order, and especially with the Creator. This desire is rooted in the presence and calling of God in and through the good creation. With extensive reflection on aesthetics in spirituality, worship, and community development, Dyrness s Poetic Theology will be useful for all who seek fresh and powerful new ways to communicate the gospel in contemporary society. William Dyrness s bold invitation to a poetic theology shaped by Scripture, tradition, and imagination one luring us toward a fuller participation in beauty than argument or concept alone allow reminds us that truth itself is beautiful to behold and poetic to the core. . . . If poetry is in its deepest reflex an intensification of life, then Dyrness s call for a poetic theology is one we ignore at our peril, reminding us that faithful living is not only about proper thinking but also and, perhaps, more properly about the texture of our living and the quality of our loving. Mark S. Burrows Andover Newton Theological School Makes a strong case for aesthetics as one of the avenues used by God to draw human beings near to him and his glory. . . . A wonderful journey through Reformed spirituality and a wake-up call for Reformed theology. Cornelius van der Kooi Free University, Amsterdam
