Friday May 5, 2006 SGN.org |
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Volume 34 Issue 18 |
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Saturday, Nov 21, 2009
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The Essential Gay Mystics author, Andrew Harvey, featured in person at May Lynnwood Conference |
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| The Essential Gay Mystics author, Andrew Harvey, featured in person at May Lynnwood Conference | ||
| by Rev. Barbara Allen, CMP
- SGN A&E Writer
Awakening to a divine, eternal presence, is wonderful, ecstatic, and intimate communion. Encounters of such glimpses beyond the curtain of day-to-day reality often take the form of poetry, detailing the describable parts of passionate union with a divine lover. From ancient Greece's Sappho and others, to Audre Lorde, same-gender lovers have been foremost in the ranks of artists whose work reflects this "vision of the sacredness of love, a belief that the divine revels in our passion for joy and beauty, and manifests through and in it". Andrew Harvey has brought together a unique, unprecedented selection of gay, lesbian, and bisexual writers whose works illuminate the mystical path. Many take the form of ardent love lyrics and psalms to male and female beauty, for this is the radical gift of the gay mystic: the lesson that the transcendent union with the divine can come through the body and the senses, rather than by denial of the body and ascetism. The Essential Gay Mystics includes texts from the Greeks and Romans (Sappho, Plato, Euripedes; Vergil, Horace, Aeschylus; the Native American Berdache tradition; the ancient Far East (including China) as well as works from literary figures from the Renaissance up until the twentieth century, Thoreau, Jean Cocteau, Whitman and more, each presented with a short biographical introduction. Harvey asks us to consider some familiar voices in a different light, and introduces us to less known writers whose words scorch the page. Chapter headings include: Sanctuary of Love, The Greek traditions; Open Wide the Door of Heaven; Far East Traditions; Love is the Diamond; Persian Sufi traditions; Fiery Love, the Renaissance and after, including Shakespeare; The Gods in the Body with Thoreau, Melville, Dickenson, Wilde; Rage, My Blizzard-fire, (early 20th Century, including Gide, Cocteau, Hart Crane, Federica Garcia Lorda, D.H. Lawrence, Virginia Woolf, Colette; Drink up the Heart, later 20th Century including Dag Harrarskjold and Audre Lorde. The Essential Gay Mystics is a lasting testament to the revolutionary power and transformative gifts of same-sex love. Author Andrew Harvey is a featured presenter at the Sacred Activism conference, Thursday, May 11th, and will lead an all day workshop with Caroline Myss: Sacred Activist as Mystic, Warrior, and Healer. Complete information about the conference, which runs from May 11-14, at the Lynnwood Convention Center, just off I-5, is available online at: www.wisdomuniversity.org. The 24 page full color event brochure and program, along with registration information is included: www.wisdomuniversity.org/sacred-activism-conference.html Rev. Allen can be reached by email: spiritual.soul@verizon.net. Founded in 1985 to serve our community, the Church of Universal Love (C.U.L.) is an omni-denominational Washington State non-profit, offering personalized ministerial services for groups and individuals including spiritual counseling, commitment, parting, forgiveness and memorial ceremonies, occasional focused Workshops, Special Programs, and Mediation (Alternative Dispute Resolution) services. |
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International Readers |
  It's new! A blog created by the SGN staff so you can be heard |
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2nd Annual WA State 05.19.06 IKEA
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working for the freedom to
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