tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67040814300336769752011-07-08T07:43:55.245-04:00Claudia Kernnoreply@blogger.comBlogger121100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6704081430033676975.post-10281998019059141742010-08-22T18:14:00.001-04:002010-08-22T18:16:55.489-04:00

TOUCH THE EARTH The Buddha is shown sitting with his hands in many different positions or "mudras." My favorite is that of the Shakyamuni Buddha who is shown seated in the traditional cross-legged "lotus" position with his right hand reaching down to touch the Earth. According to tradition, on the night of Shakyamuni's awakening, as he sat in deep meditation under the bodhi tree, the tempter

Claudia Kernnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6704081430033676975.post-86795033287305677692010-08-20T19:47:00.000-04:002010-08-20T19:47:37.088-04:00

This Sunday we will explore our circles using the sense of touch. Recent scientific studies have shown that our sense of touch profoundly affects how we view the world and influences our thoughts and behaviors. Textures, shapes, and weights can influence judgments and decisions. For example: • People sitting on hard, cushion-less chairs are less likely to compromise in price negotiations than

Claudia Kernnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6704081430033676975.post-46422450933956588082010-08-15T14:05:00.000-04:002010-08-15T14:05:35.617-04:00

THE CIRCLE OF BREATH/THE SENSE OF SMELL Kissing a Horse by Robert Wrigley Of the two spoiled, barn-sour geldings we owned that year, it was Red— skittish and prone to explode even at fourteen years—who’d let me hold to my face his own: the massive labyrinthine caverns of the nostrils, the broad plain up the head to the eyes. He’d let me stroke his coarse chin whiskers and take his

Claudia Kernnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6704081430033676975.post-66791929779531363972010-08-09T08:03:00.002-04:002010-08-09T08:19:22.045-04:00

Yesterday was the quintessential summer day. How lucky we were to gather together under our old, sacred apple tree to consider the blackberry with all its seeds! OPENING/ CHALICE LIGHTING Read the poem August by Mary Oliver Find and eat a blackberry or other seedy fruit. What do you notice? Ah yes! the seeds. What are seeds? The circle of life. Where do seeds come from? Where do they go?

Claudia Kernnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6704081430033676975.post-79478340485868969542010-08-01T15:23:00.001-04:002010-08-01T15:38:07.026-04:00

Being a Person By William Stafford Be a person here. Stand by the river, invoke the owls. Invoke winter, then spring. Let any season that wants to come here make its own call. After that sound goes away, wait. A slow bubble rises through the earth and begins to include sky, stars, all space, even the outracing, expanding thought. Come back and hear the little sound again. [Come back, and hear

Claudia Kernnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6704081430033676975.post-3641649679495021742010-07-31T20:37:00.000-04:002010-07-31T20:37:32.548-04:00

A covenant of mutual regard and responsibility binds me together with the forest. We share in a common nurturing. Richard K. Nelson, The Island Within Our summer outdoor service seems to be coming along nicely; so I wanted to take a few minutes this week to up the ante a little bit on this idea of re-connecting with nature. Because truth-be-told, this re-ligio about which I am speaking is

Claudia Kernnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6704081430033676975.post-68920228172285247702010-07-28T17:55:00.000-04:002010-07-28T17:55:36.807-04:00

This coming week we are going to focus on how sound can help us to reconnect with Nature.  I am dazzled by how American composer Harold Shapero (born April 29, 1920) saw the connections of sound and nature: " a great percentage of what is heard becomes submerged in the unconscious and is subject to literal recall.  If we in fact have a "tonal memory," what do the voices of our ancestors, our

Claudia Kernnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6704081430033676975.post-50877629287591429942010-07-25T14:29:00.004-04:002010-07-25T16:02:51.485-04:00

"To see a wren in a bush, call it "wren," and go on walking is to have (self-importantly) seen nothing. To see a bird and stop, watch, feel, forget yourself for amoment, be in the bushy shadows, maybe then feel "wren" - that is to have joined in a larger moment with the world. " - Gary Snyder,Language Goes Two Ways, 1995 LIGHTING THE CHALICE We are all on a journey together... To the center

Claudia Kernnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6704081430033676975.post-82335042815905842752010-07-11T22:24:00.002-04:002010-07-11T22:33:41.865-04:00

 You can't know who you areUntil you know where you are.                                                                                    Wendell Berry Our first Sunday in the woods went well. We began by sitting together under our venerable apple tree at the Meeting House and lighting the chalice with a reading of Mary Oliver's poem, "Some Questions You Might Ask".  The main idea we

Claudia Kernnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6704081430033676975.post-52191802891044965132010-07-06T17:55:00.002-04:002010-07-09T21:32:45.171-04:00

This coming Sunday, July 11, at 9 AM, we will gather at the UUCUV Meeting House begin our adventures. The Spirit in Nature boardwalk has been repaired enough to give us access to our land for this week and, hopefully, will be rebuilt (can you help?) before we meet again on July 25. Remember, July 18 the whole congregation is invited to the Stafford UU Fellowship worship service; so we will not

Claudia Kernnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6704081430033676975.post-71306427619736387532010-06-12T21:09:00.003-04:002010-06-12T21:11:43.087-04:00

This summer take a journey of spiritual discovery and explore the wonders of the natural world at the back door of our Unitarian Universalist Meeting House. You are invited to a practice of moving back and forth between our outer "ecology" – that individual physical place we select on or near the Spirit and Nature Path - and our inner "ecology" – our awareness of our physical bodies, our senses

Claudia Kernnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6704081430033676975.post-43948827753165259372010-06-12T20:57:00.000-04:002010-06-12T20:57:35.762-04:00

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here, And you must treat it as a powerful stranger, Must ask permission to know it and be known. The forest breathes. Listen. It answers, I have made this place around you. If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here. No two trees are the same to Raven. No two branches are the same to

Claudia Kernnoreply@blogger.com0