Tag: community

Ask Your Professor

Posted on | by Carmen Butcher

Every semester, all semester long, from Day 1 and sometimes before Day 1, I give my students surveys. Survey means to “look over,” but actually I think of them more as “listening tours.” I plan countless hours, pouring myself into course design and then into the time-intensive buildout on Canvas. Then I meet students, listen to them through surveys, in conferences, and in other ways, and then day-by-day tailor-make my courses to fit the actual individuals in them. It takes more work and isn’t always easy, but it’s worth it.

This semester I taught 3 courses, two of which were Advanced Research CWR4B, designated as fully online for students who are immunocompromised or are dealing with other challenging illnesses and precarities. They are a wonderful two sections of students, and we’ve had a good semester. But several have gotten COVID, there’ve been deaths in the family (not uncommon anymore), and they’ve known other hardships, family emergencies, and other stresses.

One survey that is pretty much given every year about this time is my End-of-Year survey. Students do it and upload it as an assignment. I give them time to do most of it in class, and most finish in the 20-30 minutes we take for it. The survey contains these prompts for my students in Advanced Research CWR4B:

Please respond to questions below. When done (only one thoughtful sentence each, please), upload your survey on Canvas:

  1. Who are you? (one thoughtful, detailed sentence only, per prompt, please)
  2. How has the research you’ve done influenced your understanding of who you are–how has it shaped, changed, or affirmed your identity?
  3. Of all you learned in CWR4B, what most surprised or delighted you to learn, and/or what are you most proud of that you’ve accomplished in CWR4B this semester?
  4. What did you learn about the research process or about libraries that will stick with you longest as you go forward in your remaining time at Cal as well as into your career? Also, please just add “yes” or “no” here: Did you meet with a librarian one-on-one? If so, with whom, and how did that one-on-one meeting help you become a better researcher? If not, just write “No.” It was not a requirement–I’m just curious.
  5. During our many in-class and on-Canvas discussions, what is one story/experience you learned about another classmate or from another classmate that really changed how you view the world or research? You may omit or include the classmate’s name, as you wish.
  6. What class activity or assignment most helped you understand how to navigate the library’s research treasures, and what work that you did on your own most helped you understand what it means to research?
  7. What was your definition of research coming into CWR4B, and what is your definition now of research here in our last weeks of CWR4B? 
  8. What do you yourself most need and want to do to finish strong in CWR4B? 
  9. What can I most do to help you as our semester together ends?
  10. A question about online class delivery, to help me help future researchers / students / R4Bears: To provide accessibility to all students, our CWR4B is designated as a fully-online learning/class to help students with immunocompromised health and/or other challenges. What is the one most difficult aspect of a fully online course that you find most difficult, and what can I do about it to make that aspect better?

I remind students of my rationale in this way: “Metacognitive activity is a strong component of any excellent researcher’s toolbox (as are empathy and compassion). You know I’ve listened to you through surveys since Day 1 and all during our time together. Here is another chance a) for you to reflect on your personal journey and identity and b) for me to listen to you and to learn more about you and how you learn and what you’ve learned. So these surveys help you, they help me, and they help future students.”

I decided to mix it up a little this year, and led in to this End-of-Year survey by asking them the class before it to answer these two questions just in the Zoom chat: “What keeps you grounded, and If you could ask me anything as a Cal professor and/or as a human being, what would you ask me?”

Here are questions from two classes of first-year students and sophomores. Their questions were so sincere and wise that they brought out in me not just ad hoc comments in the next class period (the class where I also asked them to take the End-of-Year survey) but made me sit down, take handwritten notes on my ideas for responses, and then type them up, and then revise them. I also recorded them because I only had time to read each class’s questions and my responses, since this time of year especially we have much to get done in class. If you’d like to listen to this 25-minutes “Ask Your Professor,” it’s on my YouTube Channel at “Ask Your Professor,” and you’re invited to subscribe too, once there.

  • If you could go back and do anything different during your time in college what would it be/ why?
    • Worry less about grades. But it’s complicated by the system. Studying in high school with hopes of college was my way out of trauma. My academic scholarships that paid for college were dependent on maintaining top-notch grades, so that complicated my life and added stress. People told me later I had the first 4.0 in college history. My alma mater was founded in 1873 and was known for academic rigor and grade deflation. Eventually, my whole identity was tied up in a 4.0, and that wasn’t healthy for me. I did read and learn a lot, though, thankfully. Good grades were what would enable me to get an education and change my dicey home and socioeconomic circumstances. That stress contributed to panic attacks and recurring stomachaches.
  • What has been a memory that has impacted your life? Has this influenced  why you wanted to become an educator?
    • I’ll never forget when I went for my college interview. Dr. Paulina Noble, an English professor, interviewed me. She must have seen a skinny brown kid who was shy, hunched, not confident, but here’s what she said to me: “You have smart eyes.” I carried that comment with me like a powerful secret, wore it inside me like a magic cloak for years, never forgetting her words. This small award-winning liberal arts college in northwest Georgia offered me the most in scholarship money, so of course I chose it. That and for Dr. Noble.
  • Was there a turning point in your life that guided you to be where you are (career wise, mentality wise)?- open to interpretation
    • I don’t know what age I was because there were many growing-up years that were and are a blur time-wise. But I remember sitting cross-legged on a rough-textured, late-1960s-era, garish orange carpet, quite worn but always clean. I was high school or maybe college age. This is my childhood bedroom. Suddenly I realized I had to forgive someone because if I didn’t it would be mortally unhealthy for me. And I asked the Universe for that. Help me forgive x-person for x and x and x and x. I don’t want to, but if I don’t, I’m worried for myself. I don’t know how to either, but help me do it. Somehow. I felt a shift. New space opened. I can’t explain it, and it took time, and honesty about my experience, and new boundaries, and it was hard, but after some years, it was done. In some ways, it goes on even into today, because healing from trauma takes ongoing self-compassion, much learning about and honoring of my voice, much meditation, and lots of healthy community.
  • Could you give us one piece of advice as college students?
    • Trust your gut.
  • Who was/is your role model and why?
    • Well, at 6, it was Batman. The cartoon version from the 1960s. He had genius-level intelligence, was a master detective, a master escapologist, was in top condition physically, was a martial artist, and fought for good and for the underdog—all things I wanted and felt I lacked. Later, my true role model has always been my first and longest best friend, my mother, who exemplifies that person who believes in you, no matter what, and who tells you, always, that they believe in you 100%. She has always seen people as people, never valuing a CEO or a Superintendent or a wealthy person over a cleaning person or a teacher or a person who is homeless or poor. She treats everyone with respect. Her model taught me a lot about kindness. How kindness isn’t earned by some rules that change depending on whether someone is “useful” to another or not, but that kindness is given to all. My mother is the type of person whose heart aches knowing that one person in the world is hungry, without a home, without healthcare, and without love, so that sticks with me, because she has lived out that concern-for-others her whole life.
  • It honestly surprises me that some educators care a lot about their students (you!) but others just teach the course material and provide minimal support. How would you inspire other educators to provide the care that students appreciate and need most times?
    • Thank you, first. Your kind words encourage me. I don’t know how to do that, how to inspire others in this way. I think that intention matters because as a teacher, there is so much listening involved, and no matter how much you plan and prepare (which for me is countless hours), you have to be a kind of jazz musician, where you also are willing to turn up, listen to your students and their situations and strengths and needs, and then respond in the moment to those unique human beings who make Cal great (you all). That means you have to be willing to revise your carefully planned curriculum as you go, rather like an experienced, much-practicing-beforehand jazz musician riffs. Michelle Obama said in an interview, “Don’t hug unless you mean it, because people will know the difference.” Her words made me think: “Don’t teach unless you mean it, because people will know the difference.”
  • If you could have any other career what would u have done?
    • Race car driver in Europe or a therapist.
  • What’s your least favorite part about being a professor at Cal?
    • Grades. I could write a paper or even a book on how I think grades are tied to an ancient oppressive system that doesn’t encourage learning; however, I teach composition, research, and public speaking, where students aren’t learning how to do heart surgery. I do think we are learning comparably important skills: how to spot mal-, mis-, dis-information, how to respect each other and have cross-cultural conversations, how to be good citizens, how to cultivate healthy community, how to honor your voice, and how we can contribute to the Common Good.
  • What is one piece of advice you would give a college student for the future?
    • VOTE.
  • If you decided not to be a professor/writer, what do you think you would be doing right now?
    • I’d be lonely, because students have brought such meaning to my life! (I really like how you put together “professor/writer” here in your question.)
  • What is the best gift you’ve received?
    • So many. Life. My children. Sean.
  • Did you face any hardships while a student and female that made you question your profession/career? If so, how did you overcome it? I’m interested in stories of overcoming adversity from a female perspective.
    • My father told me I couldn’t go to college. He said he had three children behind me, and he couldn’t afford it. He wouldn’t help me, and I shouldn’t even apply. I was a senior in high school. So I used money from my job at Granny’s Fried Chicken and quietly applied to three colleges, and it was so expensive to do that. I was the fast-food restaurant’s opening employee, getting there at the crack of dawn to set up the ice cream machine, stock out the restaurant, get the tator tots ready to go for deep frying, chop the coleslaw by hand with a huge knife, sweep the parking lot, and get the cash registers up and running. Once I made it into college, I worked as a secretary to a professor to earn money to pay for my books. This was 1979, and one semester a professor had us buy 8 books, all expensive, and my book bill was $400, which for that time was hugely costly. I looked it up. That’s about $1,650 in money today, for one semester’s worth of books. And all during my years at college, there was hardship at home. I treated schoolwork like it was a job. I worked hard to stay in school and was stressed 24/7, but a few kind professors helped me keep going, too. I’ve never forgotten them or their kindness. I try to pay it forward.
  • What are some of your favorite books/ books you recommend to read!
    • There really are too many to mention. I’ve spent countless hours reading. Some of these are from my growing-up years. Pippi Longstocking. The Alchemist. All of Carl Jung. Flowers for Algernon. Anne of Green Gables & Percy Jackson, which I read to our children. Watership Down. Kon-Tiki: Across the Pacific on a Raft. Tolkien, especially The Hobbit. All of Mary Oliver, poetry and prose. Diary of Anne Frank. The Outsiders. Heidi. The Little Prince. All of D. W. Winnicott. All of Ann Ulanov, especially Primary Speech.
  • What was the worst piece of advice someone gave you?
    • An English professor at my college whom I looked up to told me when I shared my desire to write children’s books: “You don’t want to do that.” Then told me: “Here’s why you don’t want to do that.” This professor’s response helped me see what not to do. I would listen instead.
  • A piece of advise for finding your passion
    • Be self-compassionate. Be kind to you. Listen to your heart. Be with people who support you 100%. Don’t be shy about telling people what you bring to the table. Hone your public speaking skills in your downtime, even if by practicing what you’d say if someone asks you: “Tell me about yourself.”
  • What is one awesome thing about being a professor that you’ve discovered over the course of your career?
    • I realized over time that what I say to students and genuinely mean, and what I hope for students (which is that you self-actualize and succeed), I also hope for myself. I only realized that fairly recently. Cal students taught me. So I truly mean: “Honor your voice. Contribute to the Common Good. Go forth and conquer, O ye mighty ones.” And also I think, I’m reminding myself of all that.
  • What is your dream destination to vacation at
    • Georgia—to see my family. Next—Anywhere in Hawaii.
  • What keeps YOU grounded?
    • Meditation. Breathwork. Walking. Walking meditation. Being out in nature. I go to the marsh to see creation’s beauty. I go to remember I can’t fly and how beautiful bird flight is. To marvel. Family and friends keep me grounded.
  • What do you think Cal can do better?
    • Listen to students and act on what is said.
  • What’s the most interesting thing you have experienced or the most interesting interaction you’ve had?
    • Standing before the Grand Canyon. That awe is profound. And I’ve had the joy of meeting a lot of people (especially authors) I respect and admire who are also famous, but that’s not what stays with me in the end because everyone is just a person, no matter how accomplished. So here’s my story. When I was in graduate school, my brother was in a severe wreck, he and his friends hit by a drunk driver, who died. Two of my brother’s best friends died. They were in their late teens, early twenties. Gone. I left graduate school at UGA for a week to tend to him. He had nearly died. I was trying to make all As since that was what was expected, and UGA had just shifted to a new way of testing Ph.D. students, and a lot of my friends had failed out of the program, which was distressing. It was all about intellect and analysis, and the stress to perform was heavy. At the end of my time in grad school, I was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, so I made it, but this was during my Master Degree, so my success was by no means assured yet. Meanwhile, my brother had a cracked skull from the wreck and a chip had come off of it. I saw it. He was also in a back brace, sleeping on the sofa because it was stiffer and also he couldn’t be moved back to a bedroom yet. One night when he was asleep and I was up watching him, ready to bring him water, and help with whatnot, I was thinking how he almost died. I looked over, and he was enveloped, even cocooned in a white light the likes of which I’d never seen before nor since. A graduate student trained to question everything, I was like, This can’t be. I must be imagining things. So I closed my eyes, turned away, kept them closed for a beat to “reset,” then turned back, and opened them. This white light that I’d never seen before and I’ve not seen since was still there. I did that a third time. Still there. So I stared at it. It wasn’t scary but it also wasn’t earthly. It was Other. All I could figure was it was like my brother had been to the other side, he’d been dipped in it, and he had somehow come back. This light was from that dipping. I still don’t know what it was.
  • Anything I would ask Professor would be what motivates you to wake up every morning? For students it’s to push through schools, or grades, etc. but what is that thing for you?
    • I get up wanting to help students honor their voices and succeed. I am still so grateful for teachers K-12 and professors who did that for me. There were many. I want to help empower and inspire students to invest in themselves and (continue to) contribute to the Common Good. To do that, two things are needed. I’ve got to continue trying to honor my own voice (a work in progress), and I’ve got to figure out new ways daily to listen to my students, to what they are really saying, and then act on that.
  • what inspired you to write a lot of your books on spiritual translations?
    • First, for my own healing. They pulled me to them inexplicably even before my intellect quite knew what they were offering me. The works I’ve translated are widely acclaimed ancient medicine for the soul, self, body, and mind. Childhood trauma led me out into nature, as it did Mary Oliver, the poet. While there, nature saved me, as it did her, and I started meditating, without and before knowing it. The books I translate are all about kindness. They are universal, for everyone. They have global appeal and reach across religious, wisdom tradition, and other divisions, to anyone wanting to know how to be more human (in the best sense of that word). Their authors lived in the 900s, in the 1300s, in the 1600s, and in other ancient times. Though these authors are technically “dead,” they are alive to me, and translating them is what first gave me a community of friends who help me a) deal with my shadow self and also b) discover the gold in my shadow, the good in me and my talents. Since then, I’ve been fortunate, through translation, to make friends with those who are doing this work also today.
  • What’s your favorite part about being a professor at cal
    • You. You all. Period. My students. Learning from and teaching my students. You all inspire me. Daily.
  • what is your favorite part of your career? As an author/professor/translator…what do you like about each job?
    • As an author, I love how writing articles and books helps me be and stay a student. As I’m researching and writing and revising, I regularly experience those moments of “WTF am I trying to do here? What does this mean? How will I organize this?” Genuine confusion. That’s part of the learning process, when done well. So being an author reminds me how students feel starting something new. It makes me more compassionate as a professor. Then, as a professor, I love when a student says, “I see!” after many struggles, and when a student writes me years later to say, “Thanks for the recommendation. I got my dream job!” As a translator, I love how translation requires me to listen actively so that I can hear what the work and what the author are actually saying rather than what I wish they were saying. That means, I only translate texts that are kind and open-minded inherently. Translating is the most intimate form of reading, it’s meditation, and it requires applying all of my linguistic and scholarly skills in an intense way over sustained periods (a marathon of sorts, and one I love, and trained for). Translating, I find that these classic texts translate me to myself. I grow. I heal. I translate these works for everyone, including my students, and I do it with an inclusive mindset, hoping we can find more peace, meaning, and joy in these texts.
  • What’s your favorite way to spend a day off?
    • With my family on a hike in Briones Regional Park. Or, alternatively, with a book and a cup of coffee or tea.
  • I would like to ask how do we manage stress and emotional downfalls towards the end of the semester? It’s been a rollercoaster of emotions this week and sometimes I just feel like I am stuck.
    • I’m so sorry to hear you feel stuck. We all know this feeling, and it’s never fun. The awareness of it is helpful, though, so I applaud you for that. It seems for me the solution is complex—being with family and friends; trying to eat well, sleep, drink water, meditate, exercise (one reason walking meditation is so helpful to me); having a support group I check in on and who check in on me; and going to therapy (is sometimes exactly what I’ve needed)—and Berkeley has student-to-student therapy too (which I learned about from student leaders when I was on the Mental Wellness Taskforce, nominated to that by students: https://cabutcher.weebly.com/support-for-students.html Student-to-Student Peer Counseling at Cal and Lean on Me are two programs you can find there on the collaborative teaching website my CWR1A and CWR4B students made. Please try to be kind to yourself. Also, practicing self-compassion (as researched by Kristin Neff) helps me to no end.
  • What is the best piece of advice you have received?
    • Three come to mind. A student once said about a comment I made in class, “You do you, Dr. Butcher.” I love that. My therapist in Rome, Georgia, said to me often, “Trust your gut. Don’t forget—trust your gut.” That has stuck with me. A wise person once said to me, “Forgive yourself for where you’ve let yourself down or hurt others. Then ask for forgiveness from anyone you have hurt, and atone, do better. Change. Always practice self-compassion.”
  • What’s a piece of art (movie, book, music, etc) that changed the way you looked at the world?
    • Monet. I mean, there are so many movies, books, music, etc, but Monet comes to mind at once. I love how he paints Rouen Cathedral and haystacks, so many of these “same” paintings but at different times of day and/or year, which makes all the difference. He finds the beauty in the nowness of today’s light and this time of day in this season of the year. Those series of paintings are remarkable. When I was a Rotary Scholar at The University of London, these paintings by Monet were exhibited at London’s Royal Academy, I went alone. With Sean. With friends. With family visiting. With friends visiting. I went and went and went. And when I was a Rotary student at Heidelberg eight years before that, right after I graduated from college, I was just an international student from a very rural part of Georgia, Monet was NOT part of my vocabulary, nor were museums. A friend invited me to Zürich, Switzerland, and I went to the Kunsthaus (Art Museum), and there was a wall-to-wall water-lily painting by Monet so all-encompassingly and unbelievably beautiful that before I knew it my usually conscientious, color-within-the-lines 22-year-old self heard an alarm going off. A security guard approaching I darted off realizing I’d touched it without knowing I was going to. Something about Monet.
  • What was your most wonderful experience in college?
    • College was hard for me. Sorry to disappoint, but it was, every day hard for me. I was living through family hardship then, and undiagnosed dyslexia and depression, and putting one foot in front of the other was a gargantuan achievement that cost me so much energy. On the face of it, I looked happy, accomplished, thriving, doing all the extracurriculars and well, but I was dying inside. Among all that, having a kind, brilliant teacher take my writing seriously—Wilson Hall—he commented on my work as I do on yours—gently and specifically. He helped me move from perfectionism in writing to trying to honor my voice. Also, during college we went on field trips for Dr. Hall’s environmental class, up in the beautiful wilderness of northwest Georgia Appalachian foothills. We went hiking and canoeing the rapids, and we all spent one night alone, apart from the group, all by myself, just twinkling stars in an ink-black sky, and that experience has been formative and generative for me, to this day. And I’m very grateful not to be living with depression now and that’s one reason I emphasize therapy and asking for help.

Thank you for asking me these questions. You all rock, Go, Bears!

Please note: I am proudly a lecturer, an adjunct professor, thankful to be teaching at a school that encourages respect for all people, but “Ask Your Adjunct Professor” doesn’t have quite the same snazzy, short ring to it as “Ask Your Professor.”

Chant

Posted on | by Carmen Butcher

Chant. We could sing more.

I sing everyday. It’s my name. Carmen means “song or poem.” Even on days of challenging ways, I sing. I’ve always been thankful to live under and with and through a name that means “song or poem.” It’s like my very name reminds me, “Did you sing today?”

Kindness. We could be kind more.

Every true religion has kindness as its core. Same for every true philosophy and wisdom tradition. One way I listen to the Mystery at the heart of the Heart is I sing. While my brain swirls and loops and careens, like winds in March, my song holds my heart against love and I deepen into tenderness, as I sing.

A friend shared with me the Medicine Buddha Chant. Some 1400 years young, it’s as old as Beowulf. And totally otherwise has nothing in common with Grendel’s poem. It’s a prayer for healing from the fakery of duality. It’s a prayer for the dissolving of negative thoughts. It’s a prayer for the healing of past traumas. It’s a prayer for bringing calm energy.

A friend shared it with me. He’s a Buddhist teacher. I sing it often. Through the marsh. Down sidewalks. Folding clothes. Sitting at the computer. And in bed at night, quietly.

I think of the billions of souls and bodies and selves who’ve sung it before me and who sing it now with me and I with them, together. You see it spelled many different ways when transliterated. Here is what I am singing:

“Teyata om bekanze bekanze maha bekanze radza samudgate soha.”

Here is my meditative translation of that, with my friend’s approval:

“It’s like this. Om, sacred tone of the universe, holy body, holy speech, holy mind. Medicine Buddha, King, Supreme Healer. Eliminate and remove the pain of illness of mind and body, eliminate and remove the pain and illness of spiritual suffering, and greatly eliminate and remove any slightest imprints left on my consciousness by disturbing thoughts, Ocean of goodness and wisdom, may my prayer go to the highest, widest, deepest, in sincere intention, blessing, I offer this prayer and let it go out.”

I also made a short translation and a melody for the original and the English version, and I sing both:

“Teyata om bekanze bekanze maha bekanze radza samudgate soha.”

“Sacred Song of the Universe, heal me, heal us | Deeply heal us where our mind-heart wanders from Love.”

I’m posting these, sung, on my YouTube Channel, if you want to listen, sing with silently, or sing along aloud: https://www.youtube.com/@CarmenAcevedoButcherPresence

Remember, you’re singing for yourself, not as a performance.

The way life really is, for yourself, not performance.

Blessings on you, with love.

Mystics Summit

Posted on | by Carmen Butcher

These stories are a taste of the Mystics Summit sponsored by The Shift Network. Aug 15-19, you’re invited to join for free: https://shiftnetwork.infusionsoft.com/go/mts22a24522/a24522

This summer Father Just-call-me-Greg Boyle and I had a conversation—he’s the white-bearded, plain-spoken, best-selling author, and down-to-earth Jesuit priest who founded and runs Homeboy Industries in LA, the largest gang-intervention, rehabilitation, and re-entry program in the world. To say this conversation was life-changing for me would be an understatement.

Near the end, I asked him did he have a story perhaps that sums up his work. He paused. Then Greg told a story “happened 3 days ago” about tragic death, loss, community, love, and a woman pulling a warm burrito out of her bra. It has to be heard to be appreciated so that’s all I’ll say about it.

Over two weeks I had a 35-to-45-minute conversation with each of these seventeen, in this order: Rabbi Rami Shapiro, Andrea Menard, Father Greg Boyle; Dr. James Finley; Rukmini Chaitanya, Grandmaster Mantak Chia; Dr. William Bloom; Rev. Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza, Mike Morrell; Andrew Harvey, Raven Sinclaire, Colette Lafia; Tenley Wallace, Carl McColman; Matthew Fox, Rev. Ana Jones, Mirabai Starr.

When invited to co-host the Mystics Summit for The Shift Network with Mike Morrell, I thought, What a wonderful way to be a student, learn more about spirituality, make new friends, strengthen existing friendships, and have dialogue with those who want the world to be a kinder place. Here’s what I learned.

Since the zoom camera is ultra sensitive, wonderful drivers before each session reminded: “Please don’t talk while the other person is talking, because it switches the camera to you.” Before my 5-4-3-2-1 countdown to start, I’d add my own reassurance to the conversation partner that I’d be listening, albeit quietly, during our time together: “Please know I’m listening very deeply to all you say. I’d rather not switch between mute and unmute, so I’ll resist my Cuban and Southern habits to interject while you talk with ‘Yes, I see,’ ‘Uh-huh,’ ‘How interesting.’ I’ll simply wait for you to pause before I talk again, letting you have the floor so our conversation can unfold organically.”

Turns out, that’s the best way to have a conversation. Chockful of down-to-earth and sometimes surprising stories and always sharing wisdom, these conversations highlighting each person I interviewed and their good work and teaching were also extraordinarily holy and deeply nourishing. Listening is an amazing way to be human. That’s the main thing I learned or rather re-learned.

Here are glimpses into these conversations, in (almost) chronological order:

They are (almost) chronological because my first deep bow is to the amazing inaugural host of the 2021 Mystics Summit, the incomparable Mirabai Starr, whose interview happened to be the final one scheduled. An award-winning author, Mirabai talks about her Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics. Wild Mercy is such a joy to read, or you can listen to her read it (a treat!). Mirabai has also received critical acclaim for her revolutionary new translations of John of the Cross’ Dark Night of the Soul and Teresa of Avila’s The Interior Castle.

An interspiritual teacher with an amazing gift for cultivating community and for making all feel welcome, Mirabai is a teacher’s teacher, an author’s author, a translator’s translator, and a host’s host. I watched a dozen or more of her brilliant, wise 2021 Mystics Summit interviews in preparation for co-hosting this year’s Summit.

In our conversation, Mirabai wanted to discuss translation as a doorway into sacred presence so we did. She also shares her wisdom about the Divine Feminine, how mystics of the past are accessible to you in your life right now, and how you do NOT have to be perfect to qualify as a living mystic yourself. You’ll also hear how Mirabai still owns and plays the flute she got while a student in Spain.

Rabbi Rami Shapiro is author of over 36 books, including Minyan, Ten Principles for Living a Life of Integrity; The Divine Feminine in Biblical Wisdom Literature, sharing his encounters with Chochma/Sophia; and Holy Rascals, which is another wise book of his describing what he calls a “zero-sum worldview rooted in a Strict Father God theology in which God dominates men, men dominate women, the wealthy dominate the poor and middle class, and humans dominate nature.” Rabbi Rami was so kind in the green room as we checked sound and light levels. Then he said at one point in our conversation, “I’m not really all that interested in God the Father,” and we were friends for life.

In our conversation he describes well our biggest challenges today and how we can go “beyond Big Religion,” which he describes as “organized religion focused on patriarchy, power, and control,” and he shares the Perennial Wisdom at the mystic heart of most all religion as key to our collective sustainable future. These include: All life manifests a dynamic non-dual Aliveness called by many names; we humans are born able to wake up in, with, and as this Aliveness; waking up calls us to the Golden Rule of caring for all other creatures; and this service to being a blessing (think: contributing to the common good of ALL creatures) is our highest calling.

Rabbi Rami shared a very simple exercise to help us embody the compassion of the Divine Mother and that will have you looking at a simple ant in never the same way again. After our conversation we talked about a roly-poly I’d tried and succeeded in not stepping on during my walk that morning, and Rami is the kind of kind person who is genuinely interested in such stories. I sent Rabbi Rami a thank you note after, and a few weeks on, in the mail from Tennessee came a red envelope and inside a cheerful Snoopy card with the kindest note.

In fact, Rabbi Rami is so kind that you start to really imagine that religion can be embodied kindness, a language of living-out being compassionate, or, as he says, “Religions are like languages: no language is true or false; all languages are of human origin; each language reflects and shapes the civilization that speaks it; there are things you can say in one language that you cannot say or say as well in another; and the more languages you speak, the more nuanced your understanding of life becomes.”

That same day Andrea Menard entered the zoom room from Nova Scotia where she is filming the Robyn-Carr-based Sullivan’s Crossing (which will make fans of Virgin River happy). Andrea—known in the Sacred realm as Grandmother Wind—reminds us to slow down, respect, and acknowledge, for example, the traditional territory of the Mi’kmaq (in Nova Scotia), the official knowledge keepers of that territory.

In our conversation, she shared her wisdom as a Métis singer, songwriter, actress, TEDx speaker, facilitator of the rise of the Sacred Feminine, and founder of the Sacred Feminine Learning Lodge. Then she sang LIVE a beautiful bilingual water prayer song in Michif and English from her September-releasing album.

My first day of filming interviews ended with Father Greg Boyle and the warm burrito story. He said, “I’m still laughing three days on,” and I can say I’m still laughing weeks on, thoughtfully.

Next I got to interview Dr. James Finley, former Trappist monk at the Abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky, where Thomas Merton was his spiritual director. Jim Finley is also a Core Teacher at the Center for Action and Contemplation with Richard Rohr and others, and host of a “monastery in cyberspace,” as he calls it, his podcast, Turning to the Mystics.

Jim wanted to meet a couple of times beforehand via zoom, so we could have a real conversation. I know his work 100% and was thrilled he wanted to meet, and also petrified. The first time he sent me a zoom link an hour beforehand. The first thing he said when I got on, gobsmacked, was “Hey, let me show you the view.” Which put me at ease.

The second time we pre-met, I zoomed in to see Jim in his book-lined, warmly lit study, and he smiled without saying anything, and then held up a legal pad, wrote his phone number on it big, so I called him. “I’ve got to get someone out to look at my connection,” he said, “but I thought we could talk on the phone and see each other on zoom until it’s fixed, if that’s alright,” so we did.

At the end, he and I had such a laugh because since I’d been holding my phone with my left hand the whole time, I did a half-bow of reverent goodbye where the anjali mudra was my right palm pointing skyward and pressed against the imaginary one (occupied by holding my phone to my face so he could hear me explain this). He did one half-bow, one-palm anjali mudra right back to me, laughing, even though he had his cell phone on speaker, lying flat on the table, so he wasn’t holding it.

Jim is so calm, he reminds me of Brother Lawrence in that way. Both have a calmness that is a muscle, produced by invisible spiritual exercises over a lifetime. It’s a calmness all around them can enter.

In between these pre-meetings with Jim, he sent me his teaching memoir, releasing from Orbis in 2023. It’s titled Finding Our Way Along the Healing Path. I read it in a day. Gobbled its pdf up. CAN’T WAIT for it to come out.

In addition to being a raconteur in our conversation, sharing stories that make you feel you yourself have met Thomas Merton in Kentucky, Jim Finley talks so helpfully about how we can learn to recognize and cultivate the stance that offers the least resistance to being overtaken by mystical oneness with God or Love or Mystery, which he describes as a gift always there, available for the taking up. He speaks from profound experiences with trauma. His words resonate in deep ways since he knows and has healed from trauma, and as a clinical psychologist (retired) he has helped countless others healing from trauma. Now he works primarily with adult survivors of trauma who want their spirituality to be a resource in their healing.

As an adult survivor of trauma myself who wants spirituality to be a resource in my ongoing healing, I’m thankful for Dr. James Finley and his beyond-the-binary perspective. And for how he brings trauma in so it can be healed, be healing. Our conversation features Jim saying so many wonderfully human, wonderfully healing things that it rewards both listening and re-listening.

I am so grateful for Jim Finley. He is, as Mirabai Starr says, “a true mystic,” even a “renegade mystic,” and a kind mentor for all.

My next day of interviews took me to the Bahamas and to Thailand, so to speak, conversing with Rukmini Chaitanya and Grandmaster Mantak Chia. Conversing with Rukmini Chaitanya reminds how practice is so tied to our humanness. Rukmini has a PhD from UC Berkeley, a sunny spirit, and accessible teaching. A senior staff member of the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat Bahamas, she is personal assistant to Acharya/spiritual director Swami Swaroopananda. She shares how anxiety at Cal motivated her into yoga practice. With one of THE best recording rooms ever, yellows, blues, and oranges, with a peaceful, breezy Bahamas-feel, Rukmini teaches the Sivananda Yoga Tradition and Advaita Vedanta Philosophy in a wonderfully accessible way.

Grandmaster Mantak Chia was born to a Chinese family in Thailand and raised in a Christian family—he began studying the Buddhist path of mindfulness as a child, and in our conversation he shares stories from his growing up. He also tells the most important lesson taught him by his Taoist master, and teaches the Inner Smile Meditation. I appreciate that it was 7am for Mantak while it was 5pm for me. He got up early so we could have our conversation, and I appreciate his gracious willingness to describe for us the thousands-of-years-old practices still so incredibly relevant for our modern world.

Dr. William Bloom lives in England, and he was and is a joy to talk with. Dr. Bloom is a groundbreaking UK educator in the field of holistic wellbeing and director of the Spiritual Companions Trust. Though he is very down-to-earth, you immediately sense that, as The Independent says, he has “an encyclopaedic knowledge of meditation” and deep experience of it too. He shared his fascinating background story (which includes publishing his first novel at age 22), and check out his story of the blue sky.

William teaches how spiritual and mystic experiences are accessible and natural for everyone. Some of his books include Meditation Masterclass, The Power of Modern Spirituality, Feeling Safe, and The Encyclopedia of Mind, Body, Spirit. We met on the day news was breaking that Boris Johnson had resigned, which reminded me that in an age of political uncertainty, William’s sharing of timeless, practical wisdom has special relevance.

The next day of interviews, I was in the room with Rev. Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza. Dr. Robyn is a Nashville-based, recently married (congrats, Robyn!) storyteller, professor, public theologian and ethicist, and founder of the Activist Theology Project. Dr. Robyn has a lovely poetic description for combining contemplation and action for a stronger community—a “murmuration of becoming.” Their imagination and vision for an ethical future are compelling, down-to-earth, doable. They have ideas for how we can be human, again, and I also got invited for a porch chat in Nashville, with iced tea or bourbon, my choice. Looking forward to that!

Then I was interviewed that same day by co-host Mike Morrell and got to talk about Brother Lawrence and my new translation of this timeless 17th-century Discalced Carmelite friar who transcends any tradition and has been in-print and beloved for centuries by all people, religious or not. My accessible, accurate translation is the first complete offering of this wisdom, the first by a woman of color, the first that includes all passages, and the first to use non-binary pronouns for the Divinity. I hope it will bring everyone peace and joy as it has done and does me.

After, I interviewed The Mystics Summit co-host Mike Morrell. Mike went to beautiful Berry College, the largest in the world at 27,000 green acres with beautiful eagles (eagle cam too) and wonderful teachers, in the same town where I used to teach. Mike is the collaborating author, with Father Richard Rohr, on The Divine Dance, founder of Wisdom Camp, and a founding organizer of the justice, arts, and spirituality festival Wild Goose in North Carolina. His helpful theological mulch metaphor, his creativity, and his stories are worth tuning in for, as well as his generosity of spirit.

Andrew Harvey astounded next. Internationally acclaimed poet, novelist, translator, mystical scholar, and spiritual teacher, author of over 20 books, and founder of the Institute for Sacred Activism, Andrew discusses AND READS FROM beautifully, the astounding work of the great Christian woman mystic, Hadewijch of Antwerp, exploring five of her greatest poems and meditations from his new book Love is Everything: 365 Poems and Meditations from Hadewijch of Antwerp. A 13th-century Beguine, Hadewijch was silenced for five centuries—her voice now returns through Andrew’s brilliant and moving translations, to inspire us all.

Raven Sinclaire is a writer, teacher, and student of Hermetic wisdom. Co-author of the best-selling anthology: Ready, Set, Live! she has an upcoming book: Old Truths/New Light, and is an internationally known workshop and retreat leader. Raven is also currently working on her Master’s degree at the University of Dundee. In our conversation, Raven shares with us stories of her own initiation into wisdom. She also speaks of Hypatia, one of my heroes. Talking with Raven, what most impressed me is how often we overlook the wisdom within, and how she has developed tools and teachings for recovering and engaging with it, and when her Old Truths/New Light Hermetic Wisdom Oracle Deck arrived, I’ve found it both beautiful and deeply helpful. As author Andrew Harvey says, “Raven is authentic, humble, experienced and inspired.”

Colette Lafia is a San Francisco-based writer, spiritual director, and international retreat leader who dropped in next. She has a gentle, joyful spirit. Her book The Divine Heart is a 2022 Nautilus Award winner, and I had the great joy of reading it earlier this year. Of this gem, author and interspiritual teacher Mirabai Starr says, “In this luminous book, spiritual guide Colette Lafia offers the fruits of her tenderly cultivated inner life to feed people of all genders who thirst for a direct encounter with the embodiment of love, which she recognizes as our own true nature.” Colette does spiritual direction both in person and virtually, and in our conversation Colette’s spiritual-directing wisdom shows as she shares down-to-earth ways to listen, grow, and transform as human beings. She draws from her own stories and experiences as a contemplative and gives you very practical steps to experience your life and all of life as a love story. I’m here for that. I also especially appreciate that Colette teaches a stance of self-acceptance. Her abundant, clear teachings are very practical for everyone who wants more abiding peace and joy in their lives.

Next Tenley Wallace danced into our conversation. Now in Oregon and once from the Bay Area, she and I share this geographical connection. To prepare for our interview, I watched a few of Tenley’s dances online, and they are incredible. Tenley describes herself as a midwife for women’s transformation through dance, yoga, and ancient yogini wisdom from India, Tibet, and Nepal. And even that just scratches the surface of what she’s done and is doing. Tenley is a translator of ancient wisdom, having studied intensively with yoginis, and she has created original embodiment practices for anyone wanting to live with more confidence, grace, and power. Please look up her videos on YouTube to see what I mean! She concludes our conversation with a brief, easy practice that anyone can do at any time to pause and reconnect with their true self.

My friend Carl McColman kindly came on that day after a long stretch of traveling and leading a retreat in New York. Carl is a spiritual director, retreat leader, and author of The Big Book of Christian Mysticism, and many others, including Eternal Heart: The Mystical Path to a Joyful Life and Unteachable Lessons: Why Wisdom Can’t Be Taught (and Why That’s Okay)—it must be “caught” instead.

An internationally known speaker and teacher on mystical spirituality and contemplative living, Carl also co-hosts with Cassidy Hall and Kevin Johnson, Encountering Silence, a podcast about, well, one of my favorite subjects: SILENCE. They listen to (and speak with) everyone there—Amy Frykholm, Nikki Grimes, The Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis, Dr. Beverly Lanzetta, Sister Joyce Rupp, Kevin Quashie, and Barbara Brown Taylor, to name just a few. You can tune in here: http://encounteringsilence.com/

In our conversation, my sage friend Carl talks of the inspiring and instructive life and wisdom of theologian Howard Thurman, how mysticism corrects the religion of dour moralism, and how it inspires social and communal transformation as well. We had a good conversation and hope you’ll join us!

My last day of interviews were with Matthew Fox, Rev. Ana Jones, and Mirabai Starr. If you wanted to go out with a bang, that’s how to do it.

Though he never uses these prefixes much, Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox makes a conversation resemble how the world feels after a parching summer meets rain—the steam that rises from the red earth like magic, the earthy smell of petrichor that fills your nose and body with its fragrance, and the feeling of lightness, like anything is possible, and you’re sure you just spotted a green shoot growing from that bare patch over there—that’s Matthew Fox.

What do I love about Matthew Fox? First, that he had slides of Hildegard’s colorful mandalas to talk about during our conversation: “Egg of the Universe,” “The Human as Microcosm of the Macrocosm,” “Cosmic Tree Cultivation,” and “All Beings Celebrate Creation.” He points out, by the way, in “Cosmic Tree Cultivation” the snake in the border and how Hildegard saw snakes as good, which is also my understanding of snakes, one reason I wear a ouroborous ring made of recycled white gold.

I started our conversation by holding up my dog-eared copy of Matthew’s Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen in tribute to his decades of being my and so many others’ mentor. Mirabai Starr describes him best: “There is not another man on the planet who has championed the sacred feminine with a fraction of the wisdom, scholarship, creative fire, and holy chutzpah as Matthew Fox.”

Via the lens of the Webb Telescope, Matthew asks us: “Might this sharing of the earliest galaxies and stars beaming into our living rooms awaken us to the sacredness of our 13.8 billion year journey?” He turns to “feminist theologian” Hildegard of Bingen, whom he also calls “the grandmother of the Rhineland mystics,” and “a Trojan horse in the Vatican,” because she centers creation and her love of Nature in her viriditas or greening theology, as does Matthew in his Creation Spirituality. (We remember that Pope Benedict silenced Matthew for a time for speaking out on behalf of the Divine Feminine and for Mother Earth.)

Matthew also discusses how the ancient Mesoamerican teaching recognizes the compassionate Divine Feminine: “To be human one must make room in one’s heart for the wonders of the universe.” That reminds me of Death Valley: Life Blooms on PBS, where we follow Baratunde Thurston and time-lapse photographer Harun Mehmedinovic, who talks of how important it is to see the stars, for the wonder of it, and how light pollution prevents us from that experience more and more. I got teary-eyed myself as Matthew described the Webb Telescope scientists getting teary-eyed seeing the awe-inspiring, awesome photographs.

Matthew and I had a laugh near the end after he’d been sharing lyrically about Genesis 1’s Original Blessing, Creation’s birthright of goodness and our interdependence on all creatures. He pointed out how much of theology starts unfortunately with Genesis 2 and an unhealthy Original Sin that has historically made for a narcissistic theology of self-loathing, one where we’ve forgotten the goodness and the sacred nature of Nature that we meant to honor and protect, and from that sacred focus, develop an economic system that works for all beings.

I followed up with something like: “I appreciate how you’ve spent—are devoting—your whole life trying to glue Chapter 1 back into Genesis.” He laughed, and we agreed that super glue might be needed.

My penultimate interview was with Rev. Ana Jones. (Ana is said to rhyme with “Amma.”) Rev. Ana Jones is an internationally renowned Interfaith Minister who speaks to ways that we can listen to the still small voice of intuition. Being with her, you can’t help but notice that she has a profound calmness and optimism. She brings into our conversation allusions to many religious writings that deepen her practices. Ana also shares insightful personal stories, and we see that what she teaches, she lives. Ana helps us better understand what intuition is and how to listen to it, teaches that we need everyone’s inner mystic and intuitive gifts to be honed for co-creating a better and brighter future, and reads a beautiful poem as a benediction. With Facebook communities of over 450,000 members, Ana’s inclusive, listening approach resonates with many and gives me hope.

I am thankful to have worked on this Mystics Summit with so many amazing people. And this is just half of it! Mike interviewed such wonderful souls, including Banafsheh Sayyad, Bushi Yamato Damashii, Alexander John Shaia, Taya Mâ Shere, Rebekah Berndt, Kabir Helminski, Hillary Raining, Tripp Fuller, Micky ScottBey Jones (she/her), Sophie Strand, Juliet Rania, Rabbi Jay Michaelson, Gareth Higgins, Therese Taylor-Stinson, Tada Hozumi, and others, whom I’m also looking forward to tuning into. May you all enjoy all of this wonderful feast!

These stories are a taste of the Mystics Summit sponsored by The Shift Network. It’s August 15-19, join for free here: https://shiftnetwork.infusionsoft.com/go/mts22a24522/a24522

Thank you! Peace to all,

Carmen

Red Dirt, Rilke, & The Sidney Psalter

Posted on | by Carmen Butcher

Alexandria “Lexi,” Alithia, Amerie, Annabell, Eliahna “Ellie,” Eliahna, Jackie, Jailah, Jayce, Jose, Layla, Maite, Makenna, Maranda, Nevaeh, Rogelio, Tess, Uziyah, and Xavier, plus educators Eva and Irma. Grieving the deaths of nineteen children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, and more than a dozen people wounded.

I remember an international student from England who asked me once in disbelief during an office hour conference: “Why do you allow guns here like you do? My father was in the secret service, and when he retired, he had to turn his firearms back in. We don’t have guns, and we don’t have gun violence.”

I had no answer. I have no answer.

I turned to other questions I can begin to answer on an incredibly still gorgeous blue-sky Sunday morning. Contemplating how growing up in the South influenced me as a writer and translator. And, because I’m always up for learning more about how women navigated systemic obstructions, reading a dissertation by Dr. Han VanderHart on seventeenth-century women poets, thanks to Twitter.

Which tells me that writing and rewriting, reading and taking notes are sometimes more comforting to me than even walking in sunshine. Putting good ideas/feelings, and healthy challenges into my brain is a kind of nourishment when my self is existentially frustrated. Being a focused student is soothing, healing.

My good friend Darrell Z. Grizzle invited me to do a future online interview for his blog, Story & Spirit in the Shadow-Haunted South. His kind idea, to help get the word out about my translation of the spiritual classic Practice of the Presence by Brother Lawrence, releasing on August 23, 2022. Two of his questions, “What is your connection to the American South?” and “How has that connection to the South informed your work as a writer?” got red dirt on my knees again.

I grew up in the rolling ancient hills of northwest Georgia. If you haven’t felt and seen and walked through the lacy soft mist embracing those hills when they’re green and it’s early morning and it wraps you up in its beautiful mystery, you haven’t yet lived. The purple of those morning glories will teach you the meaning of glory like nothing else can or will. And its long-weathered, rust-shaded dirt is hard, packed by history. The ack-swat-whack at unassailable horse flies down deserted, asphalted back roads where I walked regularly taught me the meaning of persistence and made the pesky gnats of my mother’s south Georgia seem nowhere near vexing.

My much-loved neighbors influenced me a lot. I grew up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, and they taught me Southern Mountain English and culture, how neighbors help each other, or as they said, holp each other. Beautiful language—How over there is over yunder way and a photo is a pitcher and there’s a joke my classmates told me in 5th grade about did I know that the wise men in the Christmas story were actually firemen because they came “from afar.”

Partial to bib overalls, my neighbors worked at deafening looms making denim for the cotton mill owners, and grew and canned their own vegetables. And raised sardined yellow chicks in long stinking chicken houses. While rocks and trees deep in the woods where I played had Cherokee carvings on them. And several of my high school friends who are Black whispered to me they had been shot at driving through a town nearby. And church was a screed or screech or scree of brimstone from a booming pulpit while women quietly tended nursery. And my childhood held other trauma for me. While I also found school almost impossible during decades of undiagnosed dyslexia and deep anxiety.

But the homemade ice tea was so sweet, so cold, and so delicious I can still feel my teeth set on delicious edge just by thinking of its amber light in a clear pitcher. Peaches were worth eating with the fuzz on, so juicy they drip down the chin. A neighbor called me into her garden one summer afternoon, pulled and offered stunned me a huge ripe red tomato, said, “Bite hit,” and only then tasting that deep sweetness did I learn why tomatoes are indeed fruit. I watched a neighbor’s house burn slap to the ground and then other neighbors took off work and built them a new one, while I helped clean the trailer they lived in until it was done. And, yes, the guns that were everywhere made me as nervous as Fiver. I have stories about guns I’ve written down for myself but don’t tell.

How do all of these stories and more shape a writer/author and a translator of spiritual texts?

I think of Rilke’s reminder to Franz Xaver Kappus—”Herr Kappus”—in Briefe an Einen Jungen Dichter (Letters to a Young Poet). I “try to have love for the questions themselves,” and I hear Rilke say again, “Live the questions now.” But how do we live the very hard questions now facing us all?

So often quoted, Rilke’s wisdom has become a bit of a blunt saw, so I refresh its teeth by looking at the original German, both beautiful and useful: “zu versuchen, die Fragen selbst liebzuhaben” (“try to have love for the questions themselves“) and “Leben Sie jetzt die Fragen” (“Live the questions now”). “Perhaps then,” Rilke adds, and I translate, “one day far from now you can gradually, without realizing it, be able to live into the answer.” This is dependent, he says, on the possibility that his young letter-writer does exercise his inherent power for “conceiving and shaping a sacred, healthy way of life.” If you like, you can read Rilke’s July 16, 1903 letter yourself at poetryintranslation or in German at Google books.

And what does Rilke have to do with my reading Dr. Han VanderHart’s dissertation this morning? Living the question for me means staying open to all I don’t know. Especially to that which doesn’t seem to be of any immediate practical use to me, but that pulls me to it for some unknown reason. Through all of life’s ups and downs, my journey has been profoundly enriched by listening to what and/or who I don’t know. Just being curious and genuinely interested in what others are doing is worthwhile, which today included this: “Gender and Collaboration in Seventeenth-Century English Poetry: Philip and Mary Sidney, Aemilia Lanyer, Katherine Philips and Mary, Lady Chudleigh.” Listen to that title. I’m a fan of dissertation titles. Just reading it reminds me how solitary and brave and vertigo-inducing writing a dissertation is. (Yes, it’s also quite a community effort, but paradoxically, at its core, writing a dissertation is one long terrifying leap off a cliff, just you.)

Through Twitter logic, I stumbled happily onto VanderHart’s Twitter page: @hmvanderhart. I checked out linktr.ee/hanvanderhart, then ordered their What Pecan Light book of poetry, because I have spent countless hours in hushed, dense pecan groves, picking pecans for hours on end for my elderly neighbor for quarters that I stacked up very high, when I was ten or so in Perry, Georgia, and I fell in love with the way the light comes through pecan tree leaves, and anyway picking pecans is very meditative if you’re the meditative type. Then I went in search of VanderHart’s work on these four women writers: Mary, Aemilia, Katherine, Mary. Let’s admit it: One of the unsung, quiet joys of the truly chaotic, clamoring internet is you can access and read as-yet-unpublished dissertations and masters theses.

What is so great about VanderHart’s dissertation is it brings Mary Sidney Herbert, Countess of Pembroke; Aemilia Lanyer; Katherine Philips; and Lady Mary Chudleigh to light, to breathe today’s air. I’d never heard of these writers. Or if I did hear of Mary Sidney Herbert, it was in passing, because of course I read Herbert’s brother Philip Sidney’s Defence of Poesy and Astrophel and Stella, but his younger sister would’ve been sadly soon forgotten on the high-altitude hike to a PhD Phi Beta Kappa.

VanderHart’s work elevates the poetry of these women, which they describe as “explicitly and warmly interested in the other.” We need more empathy and more interest in “the other”—in each other, I thought. To my delight, the dissertation’s through line demonstrates that the poetry of Herbert, Lanyer, Philips, and Chudleigh “does not merely resist, challenge or subvert male patriarchy networks, but that their poetries enact an engagement with them that creates literary and social spaces for women readers and writers.”

These poets made healthy community through writing. That’s it in seven words. I was happy to learn about their “collaborative writing,” and loved following VanderHart’s analysis of how the work of these women “acknowledges social bonds and community and, in fact, sees these practices as essential to the writing of poetry itself.” My teaching and writing keep me grounded in community, and seeing this example from several centuries ago inspires me, I mused.

My favorite chapter was on Mary Sidney Herbert. What a good Sunday morning read. Mary collaborated with her brother Philip Sidney in making psalm verse paraphrases. When he died in battle at thirty-one during the Eighty Years’ War, over 100 psalms were left for her to finish. She was grief-stricken, but carried on. In this chapter VanderHart directs keen attention to the act of revision—to “re-seeing” itself, a process I love for being so intimate with who I am (becoming) as a writer and a person.

VanderHart shows us Mary Sidney Herbert’s loving, brilliant work up close. Previously, Herbert was branded by scholars as a so-called “inveterate tinkerer who found it difficult to make up her mind” (quoting William Ringler, but also an epithet, VanderHart notes, used by Gary Waller, Harold Love, J.C.A. Rathmell, et al.). This chapter’s discussion of “the joy of revision,” particularly of Herbert’s “joy” in her “care[ful,] attenti[ve]” revisions of Philip’s psalms, and of revision itself as an activity “closer to that of a musician playing variations on a favourite theme” (quoting Harold Love) reminds me of the unfinished nature of all writing that is truly alive, even the most polished.

When I read that Margaret P. Hannay describes the Psalms in the Tanakh as a “divinely inspired expression of human experience,” I thought how I feel just the same about Brother Lawrence’s Practice of the Presence. It’s genuine wisdom. Always universal.

I loved discovering that Philip Sidney chose not “sinners” but “bad mates” in his poetic paraphrasing of Psalm 1, making the language “richer and more steeped in early modern life practices than the more abstract language of the English Bible translations,” as VanderHart observes. John Donne would later say that in The Sidney Psalter Philip and Mary “teach us how to sing.”

Next, VanderHart’s chapter on Aemilia Lanyer explores the life and writing of this Londoner, whose poetry was “expressly concerned” with cultivating a community of reading, writing women. Lanyer wrote from the margins. VanderHart discusses that she was “probably a Jew, married to a gentile instrumentalist associated with the production of royal music.” Lanyer reminds us that “to write from the margins, . . . is to write from a perspective of self-deprecation and unworthiness. Or at least a performance of humilitas.” As an olive-skinned woman coming of age in the South, margins are familiar terra firma.

Poet Katherine Philips intrigues VanderHart for how she “amends the concept of Stoic retreat by making sociability central to its conception as well as central to her writing process.” Philips’ poetry centers relationship and friendship rather than the expected Stoic retirement for self-discovery, self-healing. And poet Mary Chudleigh is fascinating for how she creates a “collaborative conversation” in the unlikeliest of places, with minister John Sprint, and her “Ladies Defence” is a wonderful argument for self-kindness.

VanderHart’s engaging dissertation ends with this paragraph about these remarkable poets they’ve brought blinking and bright-eyed into the klieg lights of the twenty-first century:

“With or without rooms of their own in which to write, early modern women in seventeenth-century England wrote with and for each other. To bring the modern language of collaboration to their poetry is to highlight an attention to audience and community integral to the production of their texts. The four women whose work this dissertation examines did not view themselves as writing alone but in a company of other women, readers and writers. These chapters argue that these four poets did not have the luxury or privilege—despite some of their aristocratic statuses—of considering themselves as working alone or autonomously. Whether the aim in addressing each other by name was praise, invitation or, as in the case of Lady Chudleigh’s poetry, a deployment of ‘reciprocal esteem’ taking the form of corrective dialogue, the recognition of specific others forms the occasion of the poem itself.”

Thankful for these poets, I reflect. I also do not consider myself writing alone but in the company of others, readers and writers, present and past, connecting these diverse strands: Grizzle, Rilke, VanderHart.

My friend Darrell Z. Grizzle and I write in different genres, but share similar interests, especially concerning books and kindness. Long ago, in a galaxy far away, he emailed me out of the blue to ask would I come to his book group discussing my Cloud of Unknowing translation. I hesitated because I was really busy teaching full-time and raising two young children, until Darrell said, “And I have to tell you I LOVE your footnotes.” Done. Our friendship and collaboration expand my world, helping me enter more deeply into “living the questions,” as Rilke says to his epistolary companion, while the seventeenth-century women poets also “lived the questions” against all odds, as Dr. Han VanderHart’s excellent work brings to life. How? Community. That’s what they all share. Sacred, healthy community is oxygen.

The same is true for Brother Lawrence. He was living as a friar in a Paris monastery at the same time, and right across the channel from the amazing women writers Herbert, Lanyer, Philips, and Chudleigh, who elevate community in their poetry. Community made and kept the friar’s spiritual classic Practice of the Presence alive. It has endured, been in print, read, and loved over 300 years, yet was only published in 1692, a year after his death, because of his friendship with Joseph of Beaufort, because of their conversations, and because Joseph and other friends wanted to read more of their friend’s writings.

Brother Lawrence also spent his days “living the questions” in community. He asked himself, and others asked him: “How can I heal? How can I find peace? How can I develop a friendship with the Divine? How can I become more like Love? How can I become Love?” His response was simple: “Practice the presence.”

Sacred, healthy community is oxygen.

Thank goodness Love is closer to us than we may think. Brother Lawrence experienced that 24/7, and when he writes, “God,” I think “Love,” because as we read his work, we realize it’s all about true love (amour is one of his favorite words). The Divine is Love to him, and for anyone hankering for more of God, Love, Wisdom, or however a person might conceive of Meaning or Ultimate Reality, the friar’s Practice of the Presence is balm.

Clicking into news, Love is easy to forget these days. I remind myself, it’s worthwhile to remember that, as Brother Lawrence also says, “Everything is possible for those who believe, even more for those who hope, still more for those who love, and most of all for those who practice and persevere in these three powerful paths.”

I see him limping toward the kitchen to begin cracking eggs for omelettes when that line came to him.