WOMEN: In the Shelter of Each Other
Posted on Jun 19th, 2007
by 
jhalifax
jhalifax
http://homepage.mac.com/snesson/Reel/Shelter_url.html
powerful six minute video of last year's retreat for women on compassion
Each year, Upaya sponsors an extraordinary gathering for women who are engaged in social action. Please join us for this unique program:
JULY 11-15: “IN THE SHELTER OF EACH OTHER WOMEN'S RETREAT: WOMEN AND ALTRUISM---COMPASSION, SHADOW, AND POWER"
With an extraordinary ecumenical faculty, including Roshi Joan Halifax, Zuleikha, Mayumi Oda, Mother Tessa, Rabbi Malka Drucker, Colleen Kelley, Diane Haug, Claudia Fluckiger, Yushin Heilmann, Jisen McFarland, Jean Wilkins, Cynthia West; with special invited faculty Merle Lefkoff, who will do a special program on women and power.
This powerful annual ecumenical gathering for women explores contemplative practice, social action, and the arts. A rich blending of body, mind and spirit, the retreat focuses on women’s spiritual lives and service to others. Includes a unique faculty and intensive teachings, meditation practice, the arts, healthy diet, and physical practice to strengthen our lives. This years retreat explores altruism, power and their shadow in women's lives: How do we actualize compassion in our lives and the life of this world? How do we serve unselfishly with no attachment to outcome? How do we care for ourselves as we extend our hearts to others? What in our culture turns us away from caring and connectedness? How do we address the issues of alienation and fear in the lives of our young people and the lives of our elders? When is altruism self-serving and neurotic? How do we create a base of altruism that is not tainted with fear? How can the arts and spiritual practice help us face the fear in our society and transform this crippling mental quality? Who are examples of extraordinary altruism in the world today and in the past?
to register or information: upaya@upaya.org 505 986 8518
powerful six minute video of last year's retreat for women on compassion
Each year, Upaya sponsors an extraordinary gathering for women who are engaged in social action. Please join us for this unique program:
JULY 11-15: “IN THE SHELTER OF EACH OTHER WOMEN'S RETREAT: WOMEN AND ALTRUISM---COMPASSION, SHADOW, AND POWER"
With an extraordinary ecumenical faculty, including Roshi Joan Halifax, Zuleikha, Mayumi Oda, Mother Tessa, Rabbi Malka Drucker, Colleen Kelley, Diane Haug, Claudia Fluckiger, Yushin Heilmann, Jisen McFarland, Jean Wilkins, Cynthia West; with special invited faculty Merle Lefkoff, who will do a special program on women and power.
This powerful annual ecumenical gathering for women explores contemplative practice, social action, and the arts. A rich blending of body, mind and spirit, the retreat focuses on women’s spiritual lives and service to others. Includes a unique faculty and intensive teachings, meditation practice, the arts, healthy diet, and physical practice to strengthen our lives. This years retreat explores altruism, power and their shadow in women's lives: How do we actualize compassion in our lives and the life of this world? How do we serve unselfishly with no attachment to outcome? How do we care for ourselves as we extend our hearts to others? What in our culture turns us away from caring and connectedness? How do we address the issues of alienation and fear in the lives of our young people and the lives of our elders? When is altruism self-serving and neurotic? How do we create a base of altruism that is not tainted with fear? How can the arts and spiritual practice help us face the fear in our society and transform this crippling mental quality? Who are examples of extraordinary altruism in the world today and in the past?
to register or information: upaya@upaya.org 505 986 8518
Access: PublicTagged with: women, spirituality, zen, buddhism, roshi joan halifax, mayumi oda, zuleikha, christianity, judiasm, faith, art, dance, music, poetry, enlightenment, social action, altruism, systems theory
altruism
July 2008
Roshi, freinds,
Tonight I'd like to remember to this virtual sangha one woman, Dorthy Day. A Benedictine Oblate, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, and, as a little girl, witness to her own mother's active love for the survivors of the 1905 San Fransisco earthquake.
Dorothy's habits of altruism took on many forms. From being a Sufferagist chained to the fence outside the Wilson Whitehouse, to being a journalist writing of labor union struggles, to opening house after house of hospitality for over fourty years. Though she might not have said that this was something she did.
Politically progresive, theologically conservative, Dorothy strove to embody the paradoxical metanoia of the Cross; “…taking up in [her] own flesh that which is lacking in the sufferings of Christ.” Faithfully sure that, “All the way to Heaven is Heaven itself.”
For several years I lived in the Catholic Worker “motherhouse”, Maryhouse, Dorothy's final house of hospitality and the first devoted exclusively to women.
Dorothy's sharply discerning managerial ( she wouldn't have agreed with the term, managerial ) authenticity reflected the devout and ascetic nature of her lifeway, even in fame. A leader in The Little Way, never her own master (mistress?). She opened herself up to the entirety of the Catholic Tradition and poured it into a bowl of soup handed to a bum. And she would not have called them a bum. A person, yes. The Person: a point of aspiration.
Her charism includes always balancing community engagement with solitary prayer, societal / systemic activism with disciplined freindships of intimate corespondence, or simply listening to an opera she loved and that fed her.
-the real deal indeed,
Jikishin
dear jikishin, deep thanks for bringing her life to my attention and to all of us. two hands together, rj