A Day with Mirabai Starr
Saturday August 21, 2021
10:00 AM-4:30 PM CDT: Program
Afternoon session includes Graduation for “Holy, Whole, and Bold: The Contemplative Path” Two-Year program participants
with Graduation Speaker Mirabai Starr
Event Location:
Online Zoom Webinar
Mirabai Starr has been diagnosed with an illness for which her doctor has instructed her to not travel while she is healing. So, this event has been changed to an online Zoom webinar.
Event fee: $59 per person
Register: Registration is closed.
“Here. Come here,” Mirabai beckons in her new book, Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce & Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics. “Take a moment to set aside that list you’ve been writing in fluorescent ink. The list that converts tasks into emergencies.”
As the brokenness of the world grows more apparent, our impulse to do something to alleviate suffering grows more urgent. And so it becomes increasingly vital that we cultivate sanctuary spaces where we can take refuge, lay down our burdens and refill the cup of our souls.
The world’s wisdom traditions offer multiple contemplative methods to encourage holy rest and sacred play. In Judaism, the Sabbath carries the quintessence of the feminine. Shabbat is interpenetrated by the Shekinah, the indwelling feminine presence of the Divine. As the sun goes down on Friday and the Sabbath candles are kindled, until its sets again on Saturday, we are invited to welcome the Shekinah into our hearts where she imbues us with the spiritual resource we need to navigate the blessed landscape of Sabbath. This ancient crucible is available to everyone – people of all faiths and those who do not subscribe to any faith – to transmute our overwhelm and restore our weary souls. Our Sabbath practice need not conform to the traditional structure. We can adapt it to fit the shape of our own lives.
The important thing is to find a way to “keep the Sabbath holy” that works for you. Where your first thought may be, “I cannot afford to observe a Sabbath,” you will come to discover that you cannot afford not to.
In this gathering, contemplative activist Mirabai Starr shares the ways in which she has come to embrace Shabbat as a beloved female relative whose love and sustenance are vital ingredients in a full and fruitful life of loving service and caring community. Weaving contemplative readings, writing prompts, chanting, silent sitting, and group dialog, we will discover how to build what Heschel called “a temple in time” and enter it.
Mirabai Starr writes creative non-fiction and contemporary translations of sacred literature. She taught Philosophy and World Religions at the University of New Mexico-Taos for 20 years and now teaches and speaks internationally on contemplative practice and inter-spiritual dialog. A certified bereavement counselor, Mirabai helps mourners harness the transformational power of loss. She has received critical acclaim for her revolutionary new translations of the mystics, John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila and Julian of Norwich. She is the award-winning author of God of Love: A Guide to the Heart of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Caravan of No Despair: A Memoir of Loss and Transformation, and Mother of God Similar to Fire, a collaboration with iconographer, William Hart McNichols. Her latest book, Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce & Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics, was published in Spring 2019. She lives with her extended family in the mountains of northern New Mexico.