@ https://treepicturesonline.com/sycamore_tree_pictures.html
PAGANS from Iqbal Ahmed on Vimeo.
Kathleen Jacobson
Birthing
by Kathleen Jacobson
Abandon your house
Leave your car
on the highway doors open wide as wings
Run
into the forest
cast off your name
strip away everything you have learned
Bury
your books in the wild
read the grass and the hollyhocks
Shave away layers of belief
Compost
religion like dry leaves
forget about God
In favor of rich soil
Plunge
your hands into earth
leave there your sparkle rings and gems
give them back even in their corrupted form
Cover
yourself with dirt and forget your color
your ancestors
imaginary boarder lines
Strip
cloth from your limbs
nude in mind and body
Dive
into dark earth
Dig
yourself into the roots at the foot of a sycamore and gestate
Be born wet and empty into a world of fungi and worms
wrap in a blanket of forest floor
climb naked and dirty into tree branches
Sit with her and know her as sister
gaze up into the canopy
past heads of tree brothers
Into the blue eyes
of the universe
midwife of your rebirth
Kathleen Jacobson
Grandmother Sycamore
by Kathleen Jacobson
|
Ancient crone Extending east west North and south No longer reaching for sky As she did at birth now Caressing earth Tired from Weight of years Pulling down Branch arms Into cradles To hold spirit children Who climb Easily into her lap I hold her With ear against bark And listen To the wisdom of 243 years |
https://treepicturesonline.com/sycamore_trees.jpg
https://treepicturesonline.com/sycamore_trees.jpg
|
Brush moves on paper
Creates the world with broad strokes
We live in ink drops
Creates the world with broad strokes
We live in ink drops
Ink pulls the brush forth
The ink alone knows the way
Evolving with us
The ink alone knows the way
Evolving with us
千年の間、私の手を握る
Chitose no ma, watashi no te wo nigiru
My hand, one thousand years
Chitose no ma, watashi no te wo nigiru
My hand, one thousand years
A Pagan's Mythos
by Kathleen Jacobson
In the beginning there was the “Singularity”, the “Causality”, the “All”, the “One”, the Great “I Am”
It was the All that became the Everything
The One swelled and rearranged into beautiful patterns; a Mandala of spirals, symmetries, waves, tessellations, fractals, and spheres
It pulled inward then swelled outward like breath
then building and glowing with a radiant energy until it reached a high point of pressure
until, in a rumbling and burst of light with shooting shards and colors, it burst outward in every direction; a cobweb of matter
continually multiplying, light of infinity, which materialized into the multiplicity of all beings, possibilities, evolving, becoming
an endless act of creation that is the varied and chaotic universe.
the inter-connectivity of all things in the memory in our bones, the longing to remember
the haunting wish to find our way back
like a salmon swimming up stream
while the water and the world flow forward
Once was One but now are Many.
But look to the world
And see the All as Many
As it chose to be
Diverse and Many
Although we may seek the “One” from our creation, we are currently not one. We are diverse as creation chose to be. We are in a tug of war with our inertia toward individuality and our longing for our former unity. We are not nouns, we are verbs, we are in the process of creation
-- Kathleen Jacobson
It was the All that became the Everything
The One swelled and rearranged into beautiful patterns; a Mandala of spirals, symmetries, waves, tessellations, fractals, and spheres
It pulled inward then swelled outward like breath
then building and glowing with a radiant energy until it reached a high point of pressure
until, in a rumbling and burst of light with shooting shards and colors, it burst outward in every direction; a cobweb of matter
continually multiplying, light of infinity, which materialized into the multiplicity of all beings, possibilities, evolving, becoming
an endless act of creation that is the varied and chaotic universe.
the inter-connectivity of all things in the memory in our bones, the longing to remember
the haunting wish to find our way back
like a salmon swimming up stream
while the water and the world flow forward
Once was One but now are Many.
But look to the world
And see the All as Many
As it chose to be
Diverse and Many
Although we may seek the “One” from our creation, we are currently not one. We are diverse as creation chose to be. We are in a tug of war with our inertia toward individuality and our longing for our former unity. We are not nouns, we are verbs, we are in the process of creation
-- Kathleen Jacobson
Kathleen Jacobson
At the Obon
by Kathleen Jacobson
|
Ancestors live
in my bones walk in me move my feet tea bowl held by grandmother's hands under mine rises to her mouth my mouth. tastes warm ground leaf mothers eyes look down I see clay vessel held by many from time of conception passed from creator to first son to grandson holding hands with each breath I honor my blood my cells hold deeper knowledge than my awareness my bones know I am here they are here We are here |
Obon is a Japanese festival to honor departed ancestors.
|
Kathleen Jacobson
* A Note from the Editor
Process Theology offers an outlook on life and way of living in the world that is available to people of many faiths. It can be expressed philosophically and theologically, and it can also be expressed theopoetically. Part of the future lies in the latter: that is, in articulating a process perspective in poetic and visual terms, through the arts. Enter Kathleen Jacobson, a pagan with process sensibilities.
The Harvard Pluralism Project names Paganism as one of the seventeen vibrant faiths in the United States. The others are Afro-Caribbean, Bahai, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Daoism, Hinduism, Humanism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Native American Religions, Sikhism, Shinto, Unitarian Universalism, and Zoroastrianism.
Among these seventeen, paganism is perhaps the least understood, including to most in the international process community. That's why we offer the short video below as an introduction. In any case, many of its themes resonate with process thought: respect and care for the community of life, the mutual becoming of all things, the value of the imagination, the withness of the body, respect for the dignity of all persons, the primacy of feeling, the sacrament of the present moment, and the general hope that we humans can help build communities that are creative, compassionate, participatory, multi-cultural, humane to animals, and good for the earth, with no one left behind. These communities are the building blocks of what process theologians call Ecological Civilization. For more on process theology, click here for twenty key ideas.
On this page please find some poetry by Kathleen Jacobson which can help you better understand what a process paganism might look like. A participant in the Cobb Advisory Group in Claremont, California, she is a Unitarian Universalist and a member of the Order of Bards, Ovates & Druids, a worldwide group dedicated to practicing, teaching, and developing Druidry as a valuable and inspiring spirituality. This informs her peace work as an expression of her spirituality. She is involved in interfaith peace work in her community. Ms. Jacobson is a student of Japanese Tea Ceremony through the international Chado Urasenke Tankokai associations of the Urasenke school in Kyoto, Japan. She is also a published poet, amateur dancer and artist.
-- Jay McDaniel
The Harvard Pluralism Project names Paganism as one of the seventeen vibrant faiths in the United States. The others are Afro-Caribbean, Bahai, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Daoism, Hinduism, Humanism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Native American Religions, Sikhism, Shinto, Unitarian Universalism, and Zoroastrianism.
Among these seventeen, paganism is perhaps the least understood, including to most in the international process community. That's why we offer the short video below as an introduction. In any case, many of its themes resonate with process thought: respect and care for the community of life, the mutual becoming of all things, the value of the imagination, the withness of the body, respect for the dignity of all persons, the primacy of feeling, the sacrament of the present moment, and the general hope that we humans can help build communities that are creative, compassionate, participatory, multi-cultural, humane to animals, and good for the earth, with no one left behind. These communities are the building blocks of what process theologians call Ecological Civilization. For more on process theology, click here for twenty key ideas.
On this page please find some poetry by Kathleen Jacobson which can help you better understand what a process paganism might look like. A participant in the Cobb Advisory Group in Claremont, California, she is a Unitarian Universalist and a member of the Order of Bards, Ovates & Druids, a worldwide group dedicated to practicing, teaching, and developing Druidry as a valuable and inspiring spirituality. This informs her peace work as an expression of her spirituality. She is involved in interfaith peace work in her community. Ms. Jacobson is a student of Japanese Tea Ceremony through the international Chado Urasenke Tankokai associations of the Urasenke school in Kyoto, Japan. She is also a published poet, amateur dancer and artist.
-- Jay McDaniel