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betucker posted an update: This is a start

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 00:49:48 +0000

This is a start

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Mon, 07 Mar 2022 00:06:23 +0000

Poetry – "Putin's Invasion" by Bernice Marie-Daly Satellite imagery of Ukraine Putin’s Invasion – by Bernice Marie-Daly The trouble is that Presence loves unconditionally and we do not.And we don’t want to; and we don’t want to admit we don’t want to.We are afraid to learn to love even though we know that all we seek is the fullness of Love.To love Putin and all of his surrounding oligarchs, filled with self-justifications, fears and pain.To love all those young Russian men ordered to kill young Ukrainian men who will kill young Russian men.To love US and NATO and EU and peoples from all countries providing arsenals and humanitarian aid.To love all spiritual warriors as they pursue, with dignity and respect – not vengeance and animosity or arrogance – all that needs to die.To love the women, isolated and defenseless, courageously guarding their neighbors and families; their children, their babies, their pets.To love all demonstrators, especially those from Russia, and all others from around the world, protesting this needless war.There is no ‘them’ — there is only us.Us – we – create inequities and then decide who is worthy.Bernice Marie-Daly © February, 2022 … Poetry – “Putin’s Invasion” by Bernice Marie-DalyRead More »

betucker wrote a new post

Sat, 19 Dec 2020 17:30:55 +0000

Chanukah and Cosmogenesis – Day 1 by Brian Tucker (12/19/20) (c) The Shamash lights the First Candle “Our present difficulty is that we envisage the universe simply in its physical dimensions. We have lost the awareness that the universe has from the beginning been a psychic-spiritual as well as material-physical reality. It has taken the entire course of the evolutionary process for the universe to find its expression in the florescence of living forms and in the various modes of consciousness that are manifested throughout Earth.” From Thomas Berry’s “Reinventing the Human at the Species Level” in the Appendix material “The Universe as Cosmic Liturgy” In the following series of slides, I’ll be exploring how Chanukah might be reinterpreted from a larger cosmological perspective. We begin by considering the question:From what or whom does the observable world emanate? The first candle to be lit in the 9-branched Chanukiah lamp is known as the Shamash. From this candle all other candles are lit starting from the left and lighting candles to the right (note: there is also a 7-branched lamp which was used in earlier Jewish temples called a menorah1). Artwork by Kosmic Kabbalah Art | David Friedman (kosmic-kabbalah.com) The Shamash candle can be lit as a reminder of the primordial nothingness out of which our Universe arose. The Aleph can be viewed as a symbol of nothingness, a foundational building block inherent in the Creation of our Universe. a) Element reaching up as symbolizing the world above (realm of the apparent diversity and differentiation of creation)b) Element reaching down as symbolizing the world below (realm of interiority, self-organization and subjectivity)c) Flame-like core of the Aleph – representing a communion of both above and below (realm of intimacy and interrelatedness) I see a commonality here with Thomas Berry’s notion of the three modes of expression by which the Nature of the Universe can be known (from “Twelve Understandings Concerning the Ecozoic Era” by Thomas Berry) Differentiation (diversity)Subjectivity (interiority, self-organization)Communion (intimacy, interrelatedness) From the nothingness (core building block of the Aleph), comes the first light. In his book “Let there Be Light: Modern Cosmology and Kabbalah”, Physicist and Author Howard Smith makes a compelling case that the link from the realm of the physical (Exteriority) to that hidden or inner spiritual realm (Interiority) may actually be Light. The simple act of lighting the first of eight Chanukah candles from the Shamash flame (the central candle used for lighting the others) may help symbolize that out of great mystery and nothingness the Universe emerges. The blessing recited on Chanukah (Barukh atah Adonai – Blessed are You, Mystery of the Universe) affirms that Eternal Presence for which no description can ever be complete or perfectly understood. Through our human birth, we have the potential to act as co-participants in the ongoing birthing process of the Cosmos (cosmogenesis), the opportunity to help usher in an era where humans live sustainably and in harmony with all species. References: 1. Per conversation with Rabbi Maurice Harris, Reconstructionist Rabbinical College and Rabbi of Princeton Reconstructionist Synagogue. 2. Artwork by Kosmic Kabbalah Art | David Friedman … Chanukah and Cosmogenesis – Day 1Read More »

betucker wrote a new post

Mon, 05 Oct 2020 12:18:13 +0000

On Interspirituality and Shaping a New Worldview (Note: This piece of writing is adapted from a presentation given to the Cuyamungue Institute on 8/16/20 as part of a Sunday Lecture Series. The full presentation is available on YouTube (click here to view). As a person raised in the Jewish faith, but a seeker of spiritual truth across multiple traditions (thus interspiritual), I’ve often found it difficult to spiritually “come out” and profess a deeper love of the world’s many spiritual and sacred teachings. For two years, I worked with the Vincentian Catholic Order in Plainsboro, New Jersey at the Vincentian Renewal Center (also known as St. Joseph’s Seminary) running a program on Interfaith Spirituality. There I brought together our local Catholic community with a variety of spiritual leaders from Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Protestant faiths including a “Non-scientist”, Jennifer Morgan, author of a popular children’s series called “Born with a Bang” and founder of the Deep Time online Network, who was engaging with faculty at Princeton University on the Scientific aspects of the birth or our Universe Story. This interfaith work grew out of my involvement with a two-year training program which I undertook at age 38 with a wonderful adult-learning community called “The Guild For Spiritual Guidance”, at a time when I keenly began feeling a loss of purpose in my life. The Guild offers a 2-year training in “Spiritual Guidance”, a system of listening and companioning others to discern their own inner guidance, and seek their “Northern Star” or inner direction. The program helped broaden my understanding of traditional Western religion by exposing me to the teachings of many great Western Mystics (e.g. Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, Meister Eckhart, Henri Nouwen, Nan Merril, Madeleine L’Engle and Quakers such as Jon Yungblut and Morton Kelsey). Strangely, it also helped me better appreciate my own Jewish faith through my study of the Mystical elements of Judaism taught by Rabbi David Cooper based on work from Isaac Luria, Abraham Joshua Heschel and others. The Guild program focused not only on Western Mystics, but also on the work of the Swiss Psychoanalyst Carl Jung, and the French Jesuit Paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin. CHT218608 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) (b/w photo) by French Photographer, (20th century); black and white photograph; Carl Gustav Jung Rabbi David Cooper Hildegard de Bingen Rabbi Isaac Luria Julian of Norwich Up to that point in my life, I had not found a meaningful spirituality within my own Western culture, but only saw how our society tends to trivialize the Sacred as either being inconsequential and overly subjective or divides spirituality into distinct religious domains of knowledge. The Guild training showed me the Sacredness of Western wisdom, even my own Jewish tradition and how it could often become deepened and enriched alongside Christian, Islamic as well as Eastern teachings be they Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Jain, Taoist or Confucian. Since that time of the Guild training which I completed in 1999, I’ve been working closely with Non-profits as a Systems Analyst, developing what I call “Systems Intuition” and helping guide the application of Technology for the benefit of participants in Behavioral Health and Employment programs designed to better their quality of life. Over the years, as I continued to touch more deeply into the Interfaith work which I began with the Vincentian Catholic community, I worked with with other Non-Profit organizations whose missions tended to engage in some form of Social Change. One in particular, the Deep Time Network (https://dtnetwork.org/), is an online network of Scientists, Artists, Activists, Scholars, Teachers and Spiritual/Religious leaders who share an interest in Maria Montessori’s “Cosmic Education”, The New Story and the “Journey of the Universe” material along with the objective Science-based Origin story narratives emerging including Big History. These many Interspiritual experiences, times when I’ve had the opportunity to encounter profoundly the spiritual practices of other traditions, which have helped open my mind to hearing a new story, one told by Science along with the cross-cultural mytho-poetic interpretations from various sacred traditions. I wish to present to you one such interpretation inspired by the “Journey of the Universe” documentary, a multimedia project (film, book, reflective conversations) begun during Thomas Berry’s life in collaboration with his students by Brian Swimme and Mary Evelyn Tucker (no family relation) and others. Within this context, I hope to also explore the role Ecstatic Postures and other embodied spiritual practices might play in providing an experiential way of aligning our inner wisdom with our outer knowing, both head and heart together with this new story of the birth of our Universe and its ongoing cosmogenesis. What is the “Journey of the Universe”? The “Journey of the Universe” is a life-affirming story told from a distinct point of view emphasizing the potential for humans to live in symbiosis with Earth and every other living being, and affirms our place within this “Cosmo-genesis” (where each moment the Universe is being born). This remarkable documentary helps us translate larger scientific discoveries into a series of poetic reflections set during a 24-hour period filmed on the Greek Island of Samos – in the Aegean Sea off the coast of Greece. I’m intrigued with a statement that Brian Swimme makes in the closing scene of the documentary “Journey of the Universe” as he climbs aboard a fishing boat and leaves the island of Samos at night heading back out into the dark Aegean Sea. He says: “We are beginning to understand the profound powers of the universe. And just as these powers have brought forth galaxies, stars and life itself, perhaps the universe is now unfolding towards some new destiny. What if our ultimate destiny is to experience the universe so deeply, we come to realize that we are in some sense, the mind and heart of the universe?” Swimme’s mytho-poetic interpretation of Science carries our hearts and minds across a noticeable gap in our daily life – a gap which most of us feel as we reflect upon whether we are living each day connected with the mind and heart of this vast and elegant Universe. The Native American Artist and Shaman, David Paladin, once said that the role of a Shaman is to tell a good story during times of trouble in the midst of great difficulties. I would offer that Brian Swimme is taking the role of a cultural Shaman in the Journey of the Universe documentary and using the powers of our symbolic consciousness to help tell a “New Story” about our place in the Cosmos. In this sense, I’m using the term “mytho-poetics” to describe our human ability to interpret, provide meaningful commentary or prose in response to our encounter with the Numinous or Sacred (based upon Karen Armstrong’s work “History of God” and “History of Myth”). I’m primarily interested in the mytho-poetics that arise from within the context of Sacred Culture along with Science which is very much an important part of our World’s heritage and Culture. What is the “New Story” (A Subjective Narrative, based on Science and Mytho-poetics) Back in 1978 Thomas Berry wrote in his essay “The New Story” about the “emergence of a galactic system in which each new level of expression emerges through the urgency of self-transcendence, an interpretation of the Science concerning the birth of our Universe. Thomas could be described as “Eco-Theologian”, as he trained as a priest within the Passionist Catholic order, earned a PhD and eventually taught at a number of Roman Catholic Universities. Several of Berry’s students expressed that he thought of himself more as a shaman than a scholar or a priest – “one who entered deeply into the powers of the Universe and Earth and brought back an integrative vision for the community” “It was the shamanic dimension of my own psychic structure that required that I go into some manner of inner experience with the natural world”, Berry explained near the end of his life. “This was not simply to enter into some form of the spiritual life, but to take on a social role. That role came in promoting the New Story and the activism it called forth.” See “Big History and the New Story” by William KaterbergDownload As a non-scientist, I have difficulty describing the details and the immensity of the discoveries Science has made regarding the origins of our universe in the last 100 years. There’s a huge back story, and it involves a great number of scientific discoveries measuring photons of light emanating back 13.7 billion years. 1905 Einstein publishes his theory of Special Relativity (and General Relativity in 1915). “Einstein’s field equations written in 1914 had predicted that our universe was not static, but either expanding or contracting.” (see “Awakening Universe, Emerging Personhood: The Power of Contemplation in an Emerging Universe”, Mary Conrow Coelho) 1929 Edwin Hubble and his astronomical observations led to the discovery that our Universe is currently in a state of Expansion, and that “galaxies are hurtling away from our galaxy and from each other” at a mind-blowing rate of Expansion ( tens of thousands of kilometers per second” per Awakening Universe, Emerging Personhood, pg 13) – also see Barrow and Tipler, p 368 Given that the Universe was discovered to be expanding, Scientists were able to hypothesize a single, unified ancient origin in what has become known as “The Big Bang” model, proposed by a Belgian Catholic Priest, Mathematician and Astronomer, Georges Lemaitre (Giorges Lumaytruh) or as Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry refer to it “The Great Flaring Forth”. Other models, such as “Steady State”, favored by Sir Fred Hoyle who coined the term “Big Bang”, suggest the density of matter remains unchanged throughout the expanding Universe because matter is continuously being created (see “3 Problems with the Big Bang”).In less than a second, the four fundamental forces — electromagnetism, gravitation, weak nuclear interaction, and strong nuclear interaction … 1941 – Andrew McKellar and other Scientists help lay the groundwork for the discovery of Cosmic Background radiation built on earlier spectroscopic work and then in … 1964 – Two Bell Labs Scientists, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson hear the sound of the birth of the Universe in the form of microwaves (made by “the actual radiation that issued from the expanding fireball when freely moving particles of light – photons escaped”) using Radio Astronomy and a large microwave horn antenna. The data derived over this period lends greater observational support for the Big Bang model of our universe. 1989 – the Cosmic Background Explore (or COBE) NASA satellite mission was launched to test the accuracy of the theory of “The Big Bang”. This probe measured temperature variations in the cosmic background radiation which could be detected with sensitive instruments on board the Satellite. When the Hubble Telescope was launched in 1990, this allowed Scientists to view galaxies and stars from the earliest moments of the universe’s birth. In 2001 – another satellite was launched which could measure the Cosmic Microwave backround more precisely, the Wilkinson Microwave Anistrophy Probe (or WMAP). From this data, scientists have been able to estimate the age of the Universe at 13.7 billion years In 2008, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) went operational and has provided much of what Science knows of the first moments of the universe and the formation of the first particles (and has been shutdown since 2018). Note: If you would like to learn more about the science of the “Journey of the Universe” documentary, click this curriculum resource produced by Matthew Riley: 01 … On Interspirituality and Shaping a New WorldviewRead More »