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Dear Friends, Happy Earth Day and may every day be Earth Day!
May I introduce you to my dear friend, Pando(see photo on left with eyes on tree.)This is Pando, an Aspen tree in Utah. Pando, these are friends of Church for our Common Home that are interconnected to me by the internet, an invisible web of potential global consciousness raising. Mucho gusto!
Here she is.... Pando looking and longing to be in relationship with us. She needs our help and cries our in pain.
I met Pando a few months ago on my way home from the inspired World Parliament of Religions, in Salt Lake City. Three of us drove back to California together, and stopped by to visit these ancient and holy trees and to hold a worship service in her honor, to pray for her, and to ask for forgiveness for all the ways we as a human family have harmed her and commit to making amends. We don't really know why she is dying, but we know we are killing many species of plants and animals on earth because of climate change, toxins and ignorance.
Pando is a kind of Aspen tree (genera 'Populus') but cannot be separated from the whole root system, for she is one individual tree that is a part of one larger organism that share a giant root system. It was chosen as a symbol of ecologic catastrophe at the "Seizing and Alternative" an ecologic conference summer of 2015 and is now a web site
www.pandopopulus.com
linking activism with Whitehead's philosophy. This conference raised my consciousness in many ways and broke through my own denial about the severity of our global situation. Pando populus is a living organism, called the largest and oldest organism on earth for she is over 100 acres and is 80,000 to one million years old. Her root system is what is so old and like the earth she sprouts millions of new trees continuously that are born, grow to maturity and die, in the natural birth, death and rebirth cycle all of us share.
All nature has communicated with all other plants and animals for millions of years, but we have forgotten that we too are animals and we have forgotten our mother tongue, natures language of feelings and heart centered love and caring. Church for our Common Home, wants to encourage our relearning this ancient language of feelings, heart felt, love and care. We are here on earth to learn to love, and as we say in our vision statement for our new church, "
Our vision is to spiritually awaken and raise our consciousness about the sacred nature of all life and our interconnectedness in order to come together as a human family and
care
for our common home and love God/dess with all our hearts, souls and minds and creation as ourselves." We have changed the word "neighbor" for "creation" to highlight the truth that all life is our neighbor and that what we do to affects every other life forms.
I worked on the Anima Mundi track at the ecology conference and we explored all the ways in which we are all apart of the world soul or as Plontinus wrote, "There is one and the same soul in many bodies." We need dream honoring, scripture study, worship, prayer and mediation practices, creative work, etc. in order to connect to our highest selves, to God or whatever words you prefer. Jesus taught, that God is love
"
Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love."1 John 4:8 and he taught that especially the smallest and most vulnerable are welcome at God's table of love and care. Our 300 year old scientific ideas about our separateness have contributed to our ecologic crisis and it is past time we awaken to our oneness with other creatures and life forms.
Pando is our neighbor, a member of our family in our family not called homo sapiens but our family called nature and she is trying to communicate with us. Look into her eyes. She is in pain and needs our help.
We have gone through many different names as a new church. First, we were the Church of Mary Magdalene wanting to bring back the divine feminine that has been left out of all patriarchal religions. Soon our conversations turned to the earth, and we adopted the term Pope Francis used in his environmental letter to all people on earth when he invited us to "Care for our Common Home."
Our new home/internet/radio blog church however misses Mary Magdalene's name so we have decided to call our weekly soup and pot luck dinners
Magdalene's Pando Kitchen.
In honoring Mary Magdalene we are also honoring the ancient goddess, wisdom, the earth goddess who predates all the world religions. Pando actually predates all religions and us as poeple. She is the God/dess who is the tree of life, that which is under the earth, over the earth, always changing, giving birth, she who comes out of the darkness. She is the
Black Madonna, who loves all her children, the one who has given so much and been so dishonored. We honor you this Earth Day you who have many names. We worship you this Earth Day as we learn to celebrate Earth Day every day.
On April Fool's Day I was honored to be a part of the Center for Process Studies conference of writes who contributed to
For Our Common Home a book edited by Dr. John B. Cobb Jr. and Dr. Ignatio Casturera's and I shared about my chapter which you can read on our church web site, "At the Bedside of our Mother Earth." and view presentations at
I liked what Dr. Mary Evelyn Tucker from Yale www.emergingearthcommunity.org shared about the three topics that bring people together the most effectively- children, health and food. We dedicate Magdalene's Pando Kitchen to breaking bread together, looking deeply into one another eyes and listening and sharing with one another as we share recipes and learn about vegetarianism and how it is one of the most effective ways we can address climate change, and most importantly how we can love our children and all human and non-human children. We dedicate Magdalene's Pando Kitchen to our gathering together with food always honoring our Mother who provides us our food. A place to gather as we plan for caring for all those who as Jesus taught, "are the least of these" (Matthew 25:40) and need our CARE.
(I ask for prayers for my first born son David and his bride Jessica who are getting married in a few days.)
Scriptures for Earth Day, (The Inclusive Bible, the First Egalitarian Translation)
Job " 12:7-10"But turn to the animals, and let them teach you; the birds of the air will tell you the truth. Listen to the plants of the earth, and learn from them; let the fish of the sea become your teachers. Who among all these does not know that the hand of God (YHWH) has done this? In God's hand is the soul of every living thing; In God's hand is the breadth of all human kind."
Matthew 13:31-33 "Jesus presented another parable to the crowds. 'The kingdom of heaven is like the mustard seed which a farmer sowed in a field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is the biggest shrub of all-it becomes a tree so that birds of the air come to perch in its branches.
We are holding regular worship services every Sunday at 5 pm at 13014 Calle de Las Rosas, SD, CA 92129, in the Rancho Penasquitos area, but only on Skype on April 24th of this month for my husband Walt and I are going to camp in Big Sur and will commune with the 'angels and spirit' in the stars.
If "church" is not anything you want to attend, you are also welcome to join us for our weekly pot luck dinner at Magdalene's Pando Kitchen every Sunday at 6 pm including a bonfire, star gazing and dancing weather permitting.
Mission Statement
Encouraging awe of creation and the cosmos, we explore the visual and performing arts, dreams, wisdom teachings of Christ-Sophia in the Bible and newly found gospels, prayer, social activism, and relationships as we work to care for our common home Mother Earth, in a new kind of local and global community. We are a home church with people around the world via the Internet, exploring a new religious story for our time.
Vision
Our vision is to spiritually awaken and raise the consciousness of our human species about the sacred nature of all life and our interconnectedness in order to save life on earth and love God/dess with all our hearts, souls and minds and creation as ourselves.
P.S. Please check out our church web site that continuously is being enhanced and look at our new "Photo Gallery" which currently has photos of Pando Populus and my dear friends, Rev. Dr. Anna Crews Camphouse (an Advisory Member of our church) and Dr. Zhihi Wang and our trip to Pando in Utah last fall. Please join me and Walt at the Ninth Annual Dinner for The Institute for Postmodern Development of China where Dr. David R. Griffin and Dr. Meijun Fan (the Program Director of IPDC and the China Project with her husband Dr. Zhihi Wang) will share about the inspired work being done in China for an "Ecological Civilization" and about the over 30 Whiteheadian Process Centers they have opened in China, April 29th in Claremont CA. If you have questions contact them at [email protected] or (909) 450-1658 and read more about their work on the Center for Process Studies web site. www.ctr4process.org
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New
For our Common Home Counseling Center
with individual and group therapy services, Spiritual Direction, individual dream sessions, pastoral counseling and human sexuality education for teenagers, Our Whole Lives and more.
Join Dr. Walter Rutherford
and his wife
Rev. Bonnie Tarwater for Tuesday night group therapy. Call Walt for more information. (858) 442-6372 or Bonnie (858) 248-5123. Please check out all our new programs on our constantly developing web site with
special thanks to Jarred Coleman. aka Jarred the Genius!
Walt and Bonnie are excited to be learning hypnotherapy and past life regression with Dr. Brian L.Wieis www.brianweiss.com a leader in the field and will be offering sessions beginning in September of this year.
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Weekly Thursday Dream Sharing Group 7-9 pm
in person or on Skype, bonnie.tarwater
13014 Calle de Las Rosas, San Diego, CA 92129
Honoring Dreams as Sacred Gifts is one way we can open ourselves to spiritual experiences because the subconscious mind is one of the gateways to the "imaginal realm." In the spirit of Mary Magdalene who was the first to
see a vision of Jesus, the first to see the risen Christ,
we gather, drink tea and share our dreams.
This group is free to church members and $100 a month for non-members
with a sliding scale for low income.
Everyone is welcome to come try our group for free to experience how we welcome the dream characters into our dream circle and interact with them.
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Church for our Common Home
Radio Blog Interview
with
Dr. Steve Aizenstat.
SAVE THE DATE Dream Conference
May 7, 2016
Bonnie is the co-chair of the new IASD San Diego and Dr. Steve Aizenstat is the keynote for their first event. Early Bird registration go to
www.asdreams.org. Click on Regional Events, scroll down to San Diego and follow the links to get CEU's and register.
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RSVP to victoria.pak @ gmail
Presenter:
Stephen Aizenstat, Ph.D., is the Chancellor and Founding President of Pacifica Graduate Institute. He has explored the power of dreams through depth psychology and his own research for more than 35 years. Dr. Aizenstat's book, Dream Tending, describes multiple new applications of dreamwork in relation to health and healing, nightmares, the World's Dream, relationships, and the creative process.
What is dream incubation?
Dream incubation refers collectively to the practices, rituals, techniques and efforts that an
individual applies to intentionally evoke helpful dreams. Derived from the Latin verb incubare (in-
'upon' + cubare 'to lie'), the term connotes the support and nurturance provided by a laying mother bird for her developing egg. The parallels with dream influence are all too appropriate; in antiquity, the aspirant for a dream prepared to sleep in a sacred precinct with the intention of nurturing a dream of healing or prophecy. In more modern times, the aspirant's intention to nurture the 'developing dream' remains the same. Read more
What is the science behind dream incubation?
In a study at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Deirdre Barrett had her students focus on a problem, such as an unsolved homework assignment or other objective problem, before going to sleep each night for a week. She found that it was certainly possible to come up with novel solutions in dreams that were both satisfactory to the dreamer and rated as objectively solving the problem by an outside observer. In her study, two-thirds of participants had dreams that addressed their chosen problem, and one-third reached some form of solution within their dreams.[1] Other studies have found this type of bedtime dream incubation effective in solving problems of a more subjective, personal nature.[2] In Barrett's book, The Committee of Sleep, she describes her study of prominent artists and scientists who draw inspiration from their dreams. While most of these dreams occurred spontaneously, a small proportion of the respondents had discovered informal versions of dream incubation on their own. They reported giving themselves successful pre-sleep suggestions for everything from seeing finished artwork in their dreams to developing plots or characters for a novel to asking dreams to solve computing and mechanical design problems.[3]
A 2010 article in Scientific American quotes Barrett summarizing a few of the incubations techniques from The Committee of Sleep as follows:
If you want to problem-solve in a dream, you should first of all think of the problem before bed, and if it lends itself to an image, hold it in your mind and let it be the last thing in your mind before falling asleep. For extra credit, assemble something on your bedside table that makes an image of the problem. If it's a personal problem, it might be the person you have the conflict with. If you're an artist, it might be a blank canvas. If you're a scientist, the device you're working on that's half assembled or a mathematical proof you've been writing through versions of.
Equally important, don't jump out of bed when you wake up-almost half of dream content is lost if you get distracted. Lie there, don't do anything else. If you don't recall a dream immediately, see if you feel a particular emotion-the whole dream would come flooding back.
If you're just trying to dream about an issue or you want to dream of a person who's deceased or you haven't seen in a long time, you'd use very similar bedtime incubation suggestions as you would for problem solving: a concise verbal statement of what you want to dream about or a visual image of it to look at. Very often it's a person someone wants to dream of, and just a simple photo is an ideal trigger. If you used to have flying dreams and you haven't had one in a long time and you miss them, find a photo of a human flying.[4]
1. Barret's study on dream incubation (Dreaming, Vol. 3, No. 2, 1993) Accessed April 9, 2008
2. Incubating Dreams Solves Problems: A Description of Two Studies by Henry Reed, PhD
3. Barrett, Deirdre. The Committee of Sleep: How Artists, Scientists, and Athletes Use their Dreams for Creative Problem Solving-and How You Can Too. NY: Crown Books/Random House, 2001
4. How Can You Control Your Dreams? Scientific American.2010-07-29
Interested in learning more about ritual and healing?
Check out the
companion website to
Ritual and Healing: Stories of Ordinary and Extraordinary Transformation, the
San Diego Book Awards 2013 winner for best published Spiritual & Inspirational book.
For this collection, editor Don Eulert invited people from all walks of life to reflect on their personal experience with ritual. Their poignant and wise stories describe creation and participation in ritual's healing powers. Topics range all over the map, from Burning Man to surgery to everyday attentions; chapters excite opportunities for the role of ritual in personal and social development. Authors include professionals and poets, Bill Plotkin, Gary Snyder, Fred Alan Wolf, Malidome Somé, Starhawk, with a majority of chapters by passionate pilgrims."
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