What Then Is Love?

PRESS RELEASE.

MAKE TIME FOR SPACE.
The festival of world cultures launches its first dedicated meditation space in the form of a unique Yurt tent.

Have you ever longed to take some time out from your busy, noisy world? Have you ever sought a refuge where you could just sit down and reflect? Well, for the first time at the Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown Festival of World Cultures, a dedicated space, in the form of a Mongolian yurt will allow you to sample the nourishing effects of meditation and conversation aimed at strengthening the spirit. The Yurt will be located on the Sandycove seafront and will open between noon and 7pm Friday 24th – Sunday 26th of August 2007.

click on image for larger version. For slideshow hover mouse over side of image to bring up arrow. Image courtesy of Wikipedia Commons

It was chosen during this festival to act as a symbol for all the migrating millions, more numerous now than at any time in history.
The Yurt is a circular canvas and felt tent used by nomads in the steppes of Central Asia.

Festival revellers are welcome to take some time out from the celebrations; for some it maybe just an opportunity to enjoy a timely refuge, for others, a chance join in on the series of meditations given by leaders from different spiritual traditions, Buddhism, Islam, Catholic, Shamanism, etc. For others still, it will be an invitation to join a talk exploring central themes of contemporary spirituality.

Commenting on the yurt, the organiser Christine Clear, a Spirituality Consultant said, “This is an opportunity to celebrate people’s spiritual culture. I suppose spirituality, belief, however one understands it ultimately offers a context for culture.

Many of the artists and participants come from strong faith traditions. This space will see how they, and we, practice love, joy, peace; how we come to terms with disappointment, suffering, loss; how we ultimately find a way to connect to ourselves, each other and the earth. Everyone is very welcome to come for a little R n R, TLC, or a quiet catnap between shows!”

The yurt’s door will be open for most of the day, but will be shut for the guided meditations and talks. There is no admission charge and yurt welcomes anyone wishing for some respite and reflection. All activities are too free, but donations for speakers etc will be gratefully received!

For further information please contact Christine Clear.
M: 087 783 742. Email: Christine Clear / Website: www.christineclear.org

DUNLAOIRE CULTURE OF WORLD FESTIVALS.

MEDITATION TENT……….AN EARTH YURT…………A SACRED SPACE.

What happens when you put the words Love, Earth, Conversation, Meditation, Contemplation and Imagination together…? You come up with a funky Yurt proudly erected on the main drag at Sandycove sea front for Dunlaoire Festival for World Cultures.

Not so much environmentalism as mysticism, not so much ecology as wonder, not so much protectionism as crazy attraction, this tent will hold workshops around our complex relationship with love and earth, and their interaction. Invited participants from different Spiritual and Earth traditions will be asked to share how love of and from the earth sustains human life.

Please see this website for updated information on invited participants and sequence of events.

This is going to be a long hot summer…at least where mysticism, contemplation, conversation is concerned. You heard it here first. Over the next three months, I hope there is going to be a number of exciting opportunities and venues for us to start talking, reflecting, analysising on what it is that makes life worthwhile…and extraordinary.

MYSTICISM TODAY: A Forum for Love.

An interfaith/intertradition forum on Love. This is an exciting opportunity to learn from the different spiritual traditions what they understand by love, where they understand it comes from, how can it be practiced and how it can be shared through our human relations and connections.

From Buddhism to Christanity, from Judaism to Shamanism, from Hinduism to Native American Traditions, this forum will bring together practioners from many world traditions and see how we can explore and develop and share our understanding of love.

Both these words do it for me. I read an article in the Irish Times during the week (I’ll post the date and writer) on sex trafficking in Ireland now. For some reason ( the most obvious - I’m a woman) the horror has taken the best part of a week to percolate. Words like suffering, justice, god and why, are part of my humanity. And part of my mysticism. I guess it slipped my mind, that if we live in heaven (as many of the mystics say…and that we just can’t see it), it’s true that we also live in hell. The question for me, beyond all other questions, is why should should one young girl be locked in a room and plundered while I can go off and play tennis? Where is the universe in that?
The psychoanalyst Eric Fromm wrote in ‘Psychanalysis and Zen Buddhism’ that life poses one question; “How can we overcome the suffering, the imprisonment, the shame which the experience of separation creates; how can we find union within ourselves, with our fellow man, with nature”.
There is of course a further question, still, (and Fromm would have be in on this) and that is how can do we overcome the suffering, the imprisonment, the shame which domination creates? Its the question of any self actualized, or ethical, or religious, or compassionate or imaginative person. I’m asking it on a Sunday morning, an bright, and very beautiful and quiet Sunday morning. I’m going off off to play tennis, to runaround after a ball, to play with (or is it against?) someone, to try to outwit them (and myself), to laugh and chat at the net about the BBQ last night, to shower and change and go about the sunny Sabbath. This is heaven. And still I know that there are prisons everywhere in the city, being manned and used by gangs of men for so what some might call sex (I don’t know what I call it), and this is as far as I can see is hell. So how come I get to be in heaven? What allowed that, enabled that, pushed that and why? Karma, evil, madness or exploitation, one way or another a mysticism without an investigation into imposed suffering isn’t gathering the full weight of life.