Poetry as Spiritual Practice

Poetry as Spiritual Practice PDF Author: Robert McDowell
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416566902
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
"[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.

Poetry as Spiritual Practice

Poetry as Spiritual Practice PDF Author: Robert McDowell
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416566902
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 292

Get Book Here

Book Description
"[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.

Everyday Spiritual Practice

Everyday Spiritual Practice PDF Author: Scott W. Alexander
Publisher: Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations
ISBN: 9781558963757
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
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.

The Spiritual Poems of Rumi

The Spiritual Poems of Rumi PDF Author: Rumi
Publisher: Wellfleet Press
ISBN: 076036835X
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 131

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Book Description
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.

How the Light Gets In

How the Light Gets In PDF Author: Pat Schneider
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0199933987
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
"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."

Walking in Wonder

Walking in Wonder PDF Author: John O'Donohue
Publisher: Convergent Books
ISBN: 0525575286
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
With a Foreword by Krista Tippett–a poignant and beautiful collection of conversations and presentation from John O’Donohue’s work with close friend and former radio broadcaster John Quinn John O'Donohue, beloved author of To Bless the Space Between Us, is widely recognized as one of the most charismatic and inspirational enduring voices on the subjects of spirituality and Celtic mysticism. These timeless exchanges, collated and introduced by Quinn, span a number of years and explore themes such as imagination, landscape, the medieval mystic Meister Eckhart, aging, and death. Presented in O'Donohue's inimitable lyrical style, and filled with rich insights that will feed the "unprecedented spiritual hunger" he observed in modern society, Walking in Wonder is a welcome tribute to a much-loved author whose work still touches the lives of millions around the world.

The Girl Who Became a Tree

The Girl Who Became a Tree PDF Author: Joseph Coelho
Publisher: Otter-Barry Books Limited
ISBN: 9781913074784
Category : Fathers
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
Award-winning poet and author Joseph Coelho breaks new ground with his first novel in verse. The Girl Who Became a Tree is a powerful and mezmerising exploration of grief and renewal. Daphne is unbearably sad and adrift. She feels the painful loss of her father acutely and seeks solace both in the security of her local library and the escape her phone screen provides by blocking out the world around her. As Daphne tries to make sense of what has happened she recalls memories of shared times and stories past, and in facing the darkness she finds a way back from the tangle of fear and confusion, to feel connected once more with her friends and family. The Girl Who Became a Tree sees Joseph Coelho deploy a wide variety of poetic forms with consummate skill in its narration of events. He seamlessly but searingly weaves together the ancient legend of Daphne, who was turned into a tree to avoid the attentions of the god Apollo, and a totally modern tale, mixing real-life and fantasy, in which a latter-day Daphne seeks her own freedom. This a heart-stoppingly imaginative story told in poems, at times bleak and even tragic, which is layered, rich, and ultimately a tour de force of poetic skill and energy.

The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy

The Poetry of Impermanence, Mindfulness, and Joy PDF Author: John Brehm
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1614293422
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 313

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Book Description
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.

Haiku-- the Sacred Art

Haiku-- the Sacred Art PDF Author: Margaret D. McGee
Publisher: SkyLight Paths Publishing
ISBN: 1594732698
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
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.

Ascension

Ascension PDF Author: Giovanni Singleton
Publisher: Counterpath Press
ISBN: 1933996269
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 95

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Book Description
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.

You Were Never Broken

You Were Never Broken PDF Author: Jeff Foster
Publisher: Sounds True
ISBN: 168364560X
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Poems for accepting all that you are—including those parts of yourself that you wish you could disown “Give yourself permission to rest, and be silent, and do nothing. Love this aloneness, friend. Fall into it. (Don’t worry. You won’t disappear. I am here to catch you.) Invite warm, curious attention deep inside your weary bones. Until there is no loneliness, only radical self-love.” —Jeff Foster “There was never anything wrong with me, and there is never anything wrong with you.” So writes spiritual teacher Jeff Foster, who has traveled through his share of darkness—but also knows the light that lies on the other side. In You Were Never Broken, he presents a collection of poetry that embraces the full spectrum of human experience, from the seemingly mundane to moments of transcendent realization. Each verse is an invitation to stop and meditate on a different facet of personal transformation. Amid these verses, Foster provides his signature straight talk and accessible teachings on the value of stillness and silence, the pitfalls of the spiritual path, and what it means to surrender completely to the beauty of the present moment. For him, the winding path to self-acceptance started with nonjudgmental observation of his darkest thoughts—and here he shares his world-renowned expertise on how to begin your own journey. For Foster, every moment contains infinite possibilities. With You Were Never Broken, you’ll discover not just raw and inspirational poetry, but also a guide for completely surrendering to the beauty and possibility of the present moment.