Last August, a solitary man walked 14 miles into a lonely valley on the western side of Hatcher Pass.

He carried almost nothing: A backpack, 5 pounds of oatmeal. No rifle or bear spray.

Vladimir Kostenko planned to stay at a tiny dry cabin for months. He was seeking no less than the meaning of life.

An image capturing the last time Vladimir Kostenko was seen. Dmitry Kudryn flew over the cabin on Nov. 3, 2018 and saw Kostenko on the porch gesturing something about walking out. (Dmitry Kudryn photo)

For most of his 42 years, Kostenko had been on a spiritual quest to understand his place in the universe. An immigrant from Russia living in a small town in Washington state, he had pursued an almost monk-life existence, fasting regularly, meditating for hours and reading widely on religion.

Hes just not like anybody Ive ever met, said his sister, Alla Kostenko.

Vladimir had traveled the world looking for his purpose on Earth. The bearded, soft-spoken mechanic had lived in a Russian hippie commune and spent time following a charismatic evangelical preacher in Ukraine.

But the cabin deep in the Purches Creek valley would prove to be his deepest, riskiest journey yet.

Vladimir Kostenko as a child in his home city of Zelenokumsk, Russia. The family moved to the United States in 1999. (Courtesy Alla Kostenko)

Vladimir was born in the town of Zelenokumsk, in the North Caucasus region of southern Russia.

He grew up in a large, conservative Baptist family at a time when Christians were persecuted for their beliefs under the Soviet system, Alla said.

Among the 13 siblings in the Kostenko family, Vladimir was always the quiet one, said Alla, who lives on a coffee farm in Hawaii. He wouldnt initiate anything. Wed be the ones to say, Lets go here, lets play this game. He would follow and be quiet.

In 1999, the Kostenko family moved to the United States through a program that allowed Christians fleeing religious persecution in Russia to immigrate.

They settled in the small town of Walla Walla, Washington, a college and wine country town of about 30,000 people in the rural southeast corner of the state.

Moving to the United States was a dream for us, Alla said. We were all just amazed.

But some family members had an easier time adapting to American life than others. Alla, one of the youngest, was 15. She quickly learned English at her public high school.

Vladimir was 22 and out of school.

I blended in a lot better, Alla said. For my older siblings, they took some ESL classes, but they still kind of lived and communicated in Russian.

Vladimir Kostenko on a hiking trip with friends in 2005. (Courtesy Alla Kostenko.)

As they grew older, Vladimir and some of the younger siblings in the family stopped attending the conservative church theyd been raised in.

We all went on a personal search for answers, Alla said. For understanding what spirituality is, what God is, individually.

None pursued it quite like Vladimir.

In 2011, he went to live in a Russian hippie community near Moscow to see if he could find meaning to the spiritual gifts he was given, Alla said.

He returned to Walla Walla, and several years later traveled to Ukraine. There he became interested in the teachings of a controversial charismatic Ukrainian evangelist named Vladimir Muntyan.

Vladimir was unusually earnest about his quest to understand the mysteries of God, she said.

He was also a bit of a loner. As he grew older his family wondered whether he wanted a wife or children.

He always said, Id absolutely love to do that, Alla said. But if I have not figured out what Im here for and what this is all about, I cannot bring another person into this.

Vladimir Kostenko on a family visit to Russia in 2003. (Courtesy Alla Kostenko)

In recent years, Vladimir had been living quietly on the property of a family friend in Walla Walla, fixing up old cars. He was an uncommonly talented mechanic, Alla said. Money meant little to him and hed often tell people to pay him whatever they wanted to pay. God would provide, he figured.

He was always talking about how he wants to be useful, Alla said.

Suddenly, an opportunity to come to Alaska arrived.

Truly in the middle of nowhere

Dmitry Kudryn, a family friend and successful entrepreneur in Wasilla, needed someone to drive a truck full of merchandise from the Lower 48 to Alaska.

Kudryn is a charming self-made millionaire and aspiring YouTube star who has dabbled in cellphone repair stores and who now owns Crave, a business that manufactures phone accessories, as well as a construction company.

Kudryn is the oldest of 12, from a Ukrainian family that also came to the United States as refugees fleeing both religious and political persecution. The decor of his office, in a new construction building just off the Parks Highway, features a framed copy of the U.S. Constitution and an American flag.

The Kudryn and Kostenko families crossed paths in Walla Walla before Kudryn moved to Wasilla in 1999. They shared the experience of being large, Russian-speaking immigrant families in a small town in the rural Pacific Northwest, and theyd stayed in touch over the years.

While Kudryn had not been particularly close with Vladimir himself, he was happy to welcome him to Alaska.

Locator of cabin

Vladimir knew Kudryn owned a dry cabin in the Purches Creek valley, on the western side of Hatcher Pass near Willow. Getting to the 12-by-20-foot cabin requires a 14-mile hike from Hatcher Pass Road, over mountain passes.

Its truly in the middle of nowhere, Kudryn said. Its so quiet, no phones, nothing.

People mostly use the area for snowmachining in the winter, plus some mining, hunting, trapping and a little hiking in the summer, said Rudy Wittshirk, a longtime Willow resident who has extensively explored the area.

But it is an especially remote corner of Hatcher Pass where few venture.

Its a cliche, so I hate to say it, but that is a pretty rugged area, Wittshirk said.

Kudryn was open to letting his friend use the cabin. But a few things worried him.

First, Vladimir only wanted to bring 5 pounds of oatmeal and no other food. Though the cabin was well-stocked with canned foods, Kudryn worried that the already-thin Vladimir 61 and 145 pounds might not have enough to eat. Why not bring a few vegetables, he wondered.

Vladimir also wouldnt take a gun or even bear spray.

That bothered me a little bit, Ive lived here for 20 years so I kind of know what you probably should and shouldnt do in the wilderness, Kudryn said.

But Vladimir was an adult, Kudryn figured.

And he seemed to really want to go to the cabin.

On Aug. 18, Vladimir took a taxi from Kudryns office in Wasilla to Hatcher Pass Road, to set out for the long hike.

He wasnt completely cut off: Vladimir carried an iPhone and external power bank with solar recharging function. At first, he stayed in touch by climbing high enough on a peak near the cabin to send text messages and photos.

The first message Kudryn received showed Vladimir on the hike in, taking a timer self-portrait on the late-August tundra.

Vladimir Kostenko texted a photo taken with a self-timer to his friend Dmitry Kudryn on the 14 mile hike in to the Purches Creek cabin on Aug. 18, 2018. (Vladimir Kostenko photo)

Ascended the first mountain, Vladimir wrote in Russian.

He sent another: Crossed the creek.

Purches Creek threaded the narrow valley, the mountain walls already turning gold and green. The cabin was barely visible, a dot.

In late August and early September, Kudryn would receive intermittent text messages from the cabin, detailing Vladimirs travails with a marauding ground squirrel that he eventually killed.

Vladimir seemed to love being there.

This place is amazing, especially without the squirrel, he texted.

Kostenko texted a photo of the Purches Creek valley to his friend Dmitry Kudryn. The cabin where he planned to stay a few months is visible near the creek. (Vladimir Kostenko photo)

Kudryn asked if he had enough food.

There is enough food for three years, Vladimir replied. Im on day six of fasting.

In September, some hunter friends stopped at the cabin. They left Vladimir with fresh provisions: olives, apples, honey, smoked salmon and fresh-baked bread and kvass, a Russian fermented drink.

Some hunters stopped by the cabin in October, leaving some food with Kostenko: Apples, bread, smoked salmon, honey, olives and a Russian fermented drink called kvass. Kostenko texted a photo of the spread to his friend Dmitry Kudryn. (Vladimir Kostenko photo)

In text messages, Vladimir spoke of the cranberries and blueberries he was picking. He had boiled some down into jam.

In one of his last communications from the cabin, Kostenko texted a photo of the cranberries and blueberries he was picking. He planned to boil them down into jam. (Vladimir Kostenko photo)

I have no plans to leave, he wrote.

October came. Then November. No more text messages arrived from Vladimir.

Kudryn began to worry about the cold, and Vladimirs food supply. On Nov. 3, he and his brother, both pilots, decided to fly out to check on him.

Kudryn decided to affix cameras to his plane and make a video for his YouTube channel Crave Life, which features Alaska outdoor adventures as well as Kudryns life as a traveling businessman.

The video chronicles Kudryn shopping for and packing Home Depot buckets of carrots and bread for Vladimir. He called it Alaska Rescue Mission by Air.

Ive got a friend who went to a very remote cabin ... on foot ... literally in the middle of nowhere in the mountains, Kudryn said, narrating the video in YouTuber-style high drama. Im really, really concerned for him."

The Purches Creek valley was dusted with snow. The brothers flew low enough to see Vladimir emerge from the cabin. His arms are at his hips, standing on the porch. He looks like hes wearing black sweatpants and a light jacket.

Kudryn and his brother dropped the two buckets of food. From the porch, Vladimir gestured at them. He seemed to be saying that he was going to be heading out soon, Kudryn thought.

After that, Kudryn traveled to Asia for business. Still no Vladimir. When he got back, a 7.1 earthquake rocked Southcentral Alaska. He heard nothing from the cabin.

Worry mounting, Kudryn and his brother decided to fly out again on Dec. 23. They knew Vladimir had no experience with Alaska winter. There was only six hours of daylight now, the pink low-horizon solstice light barely creeping over the high mountain walls.

It was cold in Wasilla, in the single digits. It was even more frigid in Hatcher Pass. Kudryn filmed again for another video.

The valley was frosted in snow, the creek partly iced over. They looked for smoke from the cabins wood stove, any sign that Vladimir was inside.

Theres snow on the smokestack, Kudryn said as they flew over. That should be melted, if he was having a fire.

Dmitry Kudryn flew over his cabin in the Purches Creek Valley on Dec. 23, 2018 to see whether Vladimir Kostenko was still there. The cabin appeared to be locked. (Dmitry Kudryn photo)

The porch was clean. There were tracks all around the house but it wasnt clear whether they were from a human or an animal. This time, no one emerged from the cabin. The place looked locked up.

Maybe Vladimir was trying to walk out. They dropped more supply buckets, just in case.

Afterward, Kudryns bravado fell away. He seemed shaken.

My next phone call is going to be to the Alaska State Troopers, he said at the end of the video.

A few days later, on Dec. 26, Kudryn decided he needed to go back to the cabin to see for himself if Vladimir was inside.

He chartered a helicopter, landed and found the cabin had been meticulously sealed shut with a sheet of brown metal nailed over the door.

He pried the nails off and entered, not knowing what hed find inside. The cabin was in perfect order: Spices neatly stacked on the shelf. Plenty of firewood, a water container, bunk beds covered in blankets. Canned food. Hunting coats, outdoor gear. Empty buckets. A propane tank.

Vladimir left no notes just a Russian phrase written on a piece of wood. Alla thinks it says something like frankincense aroma do not burn." Maybe he was using it as the old preachers did, to ward off bad spirits, she said.

When Dmitry Kudryn and his brother returned to the cabin via a chartered helicopter, they found it had been neatly closed up. Inside they found plenty of food, blankets and warm clothing. (Dmitry Kudryn photo)

There was no sign of Vladimir.

Kudryn tromped through the snow and spotted one of the orange buckets he had dropped by air days earlier. MERRY CHRISTMAS, he had written on the side. Now Christmas had come and gone. It sat in the snow untouched.

The tracks seen from the air on the last flight turned out to be from a moose.

It seemed Vladimir had made a planned departure. But how long ago? And where was he now?

Kudryn asked the helicopter pilot to fly the trail Vladimir would have taken to get back to the Hatcher Pass Road. From the air, it was a thin ribbon of white in a monochrome expanse of winter spruce trees and snow. It twisted and turned. It would be easy to get lost.

Kudryn went back once more, this time with two Alaska State Troopers, by snowmachine. Again he filmed the expedition for his YouTube channel.

They found a trap line and snowmachine trails. They posted MISSING signs on spruce trees. They found no trace of Vladimir.

Kostenko was quietly listed as missing by the Alaska State Troopers, his wild-eyed photo added to a grid of more than 100 people who have disappeared in Alaska over decades.

Troopers launched no large-scale organized search for Vladimir.

In cases where a person or persons has been reported overdue from, say, a hike, troopers normally have a timeline and direction of travel to follow up on, said Ken Marsh, a spokesman for the Alaska State Troopers. Scope of the search may depend upon how long the individual has been overdue; what trail, river, or general route of travel that person is likely to have taken; geography of the location, and weather conditions.

In Vladimirs case, weeks had gone by since hed last been seen, Marsh said. Snow had fallen, obscuring tracks or other clues.

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A man walked into a wild corner of Hatcher Pass last year on a spiritual quest. He never came out. - Anchorage Daily News

There is, obviously, an increasing awareness that out of control commercialism is threatening life on our planet. Less obvious is the damage that commercialism has done to the arts. When I sound the alarm that art has been pushed out of daily life and the marketplace, I draw a blank not always, but often.

When I try to say it matters that art and artists are less visible, or invisible, many people do not care. What does it matter if real artists cannot make a living, starve, cannot produce the work of quality that comes from long practice and support?

Countless artists, writers and thinkers have bemoaned the degradation of art. Here is Matthew Fox in Original Blessing: The loss of cosmos in religion has been hastened by the loss of those who birth cosmos, namely the artists in our midst. With this loss, neurosis has increased in society.

Matthew Fox writes elsewhere in this creative book, If we considered artists as workers, we would put 15% of the population to work today making our lives more erotic for us by music, by clowning, by storytelling, by tumbling and juggling in our midst.

When I taught art in the alternative high school here in Juneau, I found that a high percentage of the troubled students were artistic. Their gifts are not valued. But society needs people who are right-brained and creative.

Commercialism is a serious problem in all the arts, but it is worse in visual art. Consider just two careers that have sustained artists and now have been taken from them, sign painting and graphic design. I did both of them and cannot imagine having survived without them. Most computer technicians are not artists. The ads they produce are annoying and unlovely, just one example of the consequences of non-artists doing artistic work.

It appears to be easy to pretend to be a visual artist. In New York and other big-time art centers, there is a shocking lack of quality in much of the art. The art is commercial, gimmicky, and will never stand the test of time. Real artists have been banished from the cities to the outskirts because they cant pay the rent, so thriving bohemian centers (like potentially Juneau!) are few and far between.

The real artist is spiritual. Real artists know their gifts come from God and relay through their art some kind of message, even if only love of the beauty of nature. Love of the beauty of nature and humanity is what we need to save our planet. People talk about this, but no one can express it better than an artist. To save our planet, we need our artists.

I am going to quote from Don McLeans immortal song about Van Gogh: Now I understand What you tried to say to me And how you suffered for your sanity And how you tried to set them free They would not listen, they did not know how Perhaps they will listen now.

I am going to quote from an art manifesto I wrote in 1980: The arts are the international language of the spirit. If the governments of the world do not listen to the prophetic voice of the artist, the earth as we know it is doomed. The artist is sensitive to the voice of nature. We hear her loud and clear. She is in torment. She is angry. We intend to alert the world to the cry of nature.

Common wisdom throughout the ages says that artists have a different vision. The spiritual vision of artists is needed for the good of the community, but it is squelched by commercialism which rewards and promotes non-artists without vision.

The Episcopalian Book of Common Prayer mentions artists: Be ever present with your servants who seek through art and music to perfect the praises offered by your people on earth; and grant to them ever more glimpses of your beauty

Artists since the dawn of civilization have espoused simple, life-sustaining virtues such as beauty and love. Commercialism has worked to silence artists. We are in mortal danger now. We need to wake up.

Perhaps they will listen now.

Page Bridges is a member of Holy Trinity Episcopal Church. Living Growing is a weekly column written by different authors and submitted by local clergy and spiritual leaders.

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The Spiritual Need for the Arts - Juneau Empire

Welcome to GQ's New Masculinity issue, an exploration of the ways that traditional notions of masculinity are being challenged, overturned, and evolved. Read more about the issue from GQ editor-in-chief Will Welch here.

The instant I join Pharrell Williams and his wife, Helen, in the lobby of the Hotel Georges V in Paris, my day becomes suddenly frictionless. The hotel door whooshes open. We step out and into an idling black Mercedes Sprinter van. It glides off. We slide out at the Guimet National Museum of Asian Arts, pausing briefly at the top of the museum stairs for Pharrell to bow to a young girl, maybe four or five years old.

Pharrell Williams covers the November issue of GQ. Click here to subscribe to GQ.

Inside the museum they are waiting for us. Pharrell has come to Paris to launch an anime-inspired collaborative installation with Mr., a Japanese artist associated with Takashi Murakami's Kaikai Kiki Co. The museum people greet us at the door; the exhibition space has been cleared so we can hang out and talk.

After a while we drift over to Market, a Jean-Georges restaurant. They are waiting for us. Delicious, healthful food arrives at the table. Pharrell and Helen close their eyes in prayer. We eat and talk and slip out. If a bill comes, I do not see it.

At Chanel they are waiting for us. In 2015, Pharrell starred in a campaign for the vaunted French fashion housenever mind that it isn't in the menswear business. Earlier this year, at the behest of the late Karl Lagerfeld, he became the first celebrity (of any gender) to collaborate on a capsule collection with the maison. It's called Chanel Pharrell. A fitting is going on in the atelier. We all wave hellos; Pharrell bows. We float up the mirrored staircase to Coco Chanel's apartment. A staff historian is waiting for us. She regales me with stories of Coco and her fabulous hideout. The metalwork of her decadent smoky-and-rose-quartz chandelier has the maison's famous double C's worked into it. When we have heard enough history, our guide evaporates so we can keep talking. There's a lot to discuss.

Pharrell has been an agent of change his whole career. When he broke into the public consciousness, about 20 years ago, as a producer and then as the frontman of N.E.R.D., he looked different from everyone else in hip-hop, wearing slimmer jeans, more fitted skate tees, and mesh trucker hats. That might not sound earth-shattering now, but a whole generation of young African American misfits will tell you that Pharrell Williams was the first time they saw themselves in pop culture. A weirdo called Skateboard P who stood confidently apart from rap's monolithic archetype. A nerd who made being different feel cool.

As he created hit after hit, Pharrell's wardrobe continued to morph. He special-ordered a custom-made Herms Birkin bag in inky purple crocodile and, in 2007, began wearing it everywhere. He started wearing Chanel clothes and jewelry, as well as designs by cultish Cline creative director Phoebe Philo.

Pharrell's wardrobe inspired subtle shifts in the culture around himand reflected shifts going on inside him too. This deep connection between his evolving fashion sensibility and his evolving sense of selfand the never-ending stream of miraculous pop music he created all the whilehas made him an icon to those of us here at GQ who believe style is about more than just clothes.

Pharrell, now 46 years old, has a brain that seems to run algorithms that project and simulate the future. He talks easily about masculinity, working through thorny ideas about the patriarchy, about the politics of gender and sexual identity in 2019 and beyond, about past missteps and his personal evolution. (As you'll see, I don't have to bring up the Blurred Lines controversy from 2013the one where the lyrics of the song he cowrote and produced for Robin Thicke were deemed rapeybecause he does.) He speaks with energy, range, and humility. Occasionally he slows down to choose his words carefully, but there is never a shadow of hesitation or fear. He thinks about this stuff constantly. He has a lot to say.

More:

Pharrell on Evolving Masculinity, "Blurred Lines," and "Spiritual Warfare" - GQ

The video game expert emphasised the importance of choosing an appropriate game for a service. He has previously chosen a video game called Flower to completement church services in which gamers control a flower petal with a single button press and tilt of the controller.

By the end of these sessions, we hadnt only completed the traditional Church of England service, sang hymns, received communion and shared the peace, but also journeyed together in virtual space as well.

Together we had traversed the landscape of the game and created a stream of flower petals that brought an old oak tree back to life with budding leaves.

A post on the cathedral website advertising the event invites visitors to take each others hands and explore a new world in the ancient Cathedral that encourages us to meditate, support each other and journey together.

Cruicially, it adds that the event is open to all, with no gaming experience necessary.

"Simply touch the screen and partake in a different kind of banquet for the soul.

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Exeter Cathedral to host 'spiritual' underwater video game service inspired by Jonah and the Whale - The Telegraph

Many experts fear the Quebec governments legislation on education will further dismiss religion and spirituality from the provinces schools.

Among the changes announced in a billtabled Oct. 1, the government plans to abolish the Ministry of Educations religious affairs advisory committee and to remove all references to spirituality from the Education Act.

The legislation, Bill 40, coincides with ongoing debates about the place of religious beliefs in schools, especially after the adoption in June of a secularism bill that prohibits teachers from wearing religious symbols during work hours.

At a time when Bill 21 on secularism in the school system is being applied, when the future of the ethics and religious culture course is being questioned, the government is abolishing the committee that is able to give notices on these issues, said Jean-Philippe Perreault, a professor at Laval Universitys Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies.

A specialist in ethics and religious culture, Perreault is a member of the Religious Affairs Committee.

In 2000, in the wake of the deconfessionalization of the Quebec school system,a Catholic anda Protestant committee of the Ministry of Education were replaced by the Religious Affairs Committee, whose role became only advisory.

When asked to explain why the current Quebec government intends to abolish the committee, Esther Chouinard, communications officer for the Quebecs Ministry of Education and Higher Education, replied: The committees opinion has not been sought since 2007.

The last chair of the committee, Marie-Andree Roy of the Department of Science and Religion at the University of Quebec at Montreal, who stepped down in 2013, does not think the government is making the right decision.

The committee made a significant contribution to the establishment of the Ethics and Religious Culture program. It has produced various very relevant studies on issues related to religion in schools, but was generally met with radio silence from the ministers, she said, stressing that the committee still exists by law, even though the government has been ignoring it for a few years.

The first chair of the committee, Jean-Marc Charron, a specialist in the psychology of religion at the University of Montreal, had even advocated unsuccessfully for the creation of an equivalent committee for all departments.

Religious issues are regularly in the news, and the misunderstanding of political leaders in this field amply justifies the existence of a forum for advice for the entire government apparatus, he said.

If Bill 40 is adopted as it stands by the QuebecNational Assembly, the section that states that a student is entitled to complementary services of spiritual animation and community engagement will be repealed from the Education Act, as will the section that states that the school must facilitate the students spiritual development in order to foster his or her development.

This worries spiritual life and community engagement leaders, who replaced pastoral agents in schools two decades ago. Some said they fear it will open the door to the elimination of their jobs.

But Chouinard said amendments to the legislation would have no impact on maintaining the function or on student services.

She also confirmed that the additional service of spiritual animation and community engagement is one of the 12 complementary services officially provided in the province and would remain so if the bill is adopted.

-Vaillancourt is editor of Presence info. Contributing to this story was Francois Gloutnay, a reporter for the agency,in Montreal.

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Education & Health Experts fear new Quebec legislation will further erode religion in schools October 16 - Grandin Media

You would think it would be an easy choice between working or having fun, right? Not for me!

I was born and raised in Minnesota, a typical Midwesterner by most standards. I am also of German and Norwegian ancestry. Im telling you this because I, like many of us, grew up with a strong work ethic. In fact, in my family work always came before fun. As many of you already know, the work is never done, which means the fun times are few and far between.

An even bigger stretch was the idea that work and fun could go together and it was not an either/or; both could actually happen at the same time. Who knew?

It was hard to move from making work the only priority to incorporating fun into the things I did, even though I knew how important it was. Just as I had learned growing up, work was still first priority. I knew that is not what I wanted and I would have to find a way to make another choice. Given this work ethic hardwired into my brain, I clearly had something to work on.

Thats when I heard about a workshop focusing on adding fun into your life. A friend of mine was going, and although I was still skeptical, I thought I would give it a try.

I enjoyed the workshop, brought home a chart to help me intentionally add fun things and laid it on my desk not quite ready to dive into it. Every now and then I picked it up and thought maybe I could add some fun to my life. I started small, but the more I did, the more I liked it. Before I realized it, searching out things that were new and different had actually became part of my life.

One of the things I searched out was how to paint the beautiful mandala stones that you see on social media. It took quite a while to find a teacher so I could learn how to paint them, but when I did, I had so much fun that I decided that others might enjoy this, too. That led me in a direction I had not expected: I now teach others how to paint the beautiful stones.

I know for a fact that if I had not taken that workshop on fun, I probably would have continued to fit fun in when I could rather than making an intentional effort to seek it. This helped me to change my belief that work is the only important attribute to have, and it was easier than I thought to make this a daily intention even for me.

I dont believe that at our essence we are meant to struggle to be who we are. I think all too often we forget that our loving and gracious God has given us the capacity to for joy and fun, which sometimes gets lost in daily life. I would challenge you today to begin to think about how you can add fun into even the hardest parts if your life.

Sandy Thibault is a life coach, author, speaker and owner of Safari of the Spirit Life Coaching in Savage. She is the author of Selmas Spirit A Journey of Peace and Forgiveness and her new book, Change Your Perspective, Change Your Life 52 Ways To Inspire You to Action. For more information go to her website, safariofthespirit.com.

Link:

Spiritual Reflections: Even for a Midwesterner, work and play can be balanced - SW News Media

She danced with witches, built a new age altar, went 40-days alcohol free for Lent (even tried a couple of AA meetings), visited Thoreau's Walden Pond and drove to Lily Dale, N.Y, North America's oldest spiritual community. She hugged a tree, even spoke to it, practised yoga with goats, immersed herself in a float tank, learned to interpret Tarot cards, explored past-life regression, hosted a "death dinner," donned a pink hat for the Women's March in Washington, chowed down on a megadose of magic mushrooms (her first and only time), tidied her house ala Marie Kondo ... and got a tattoo, a little one, of a bird, on her shoulder.

There was other stuff, too, but you'll have to read the book to find out what.

It's called "My Year of Living Spiritually," 254 pages published by Douglas and McIntyre, and it's coming to your local book store on Oct. 26. You can attend the book launch on that day from 7 to 9 p.m. at the First Unitarian Church of Hamilton, a place of worship as liberal as the Canadian Reformed Church is conservative. Bokma is also speaking Tuesday, Oct. 15, at 9 a.m. at the Royal Botanical Gardens, presented by A Different Drummer Books.

Bokma approached her spiritual encounters with both an open mind and a journalist's skepticism. While some therapies failed to provide the promised spiritual boost, Bokma never questioned the sincerity of the people pushing them. Most came to her through trusted recommendations.

Some required travel and money (she budgeted $300 on items for the new age altar), but many were found close to home and for free.

Perhaps the most moving chapter is "Finding My Voice," in which Bokma finds spiritual solace through the shared voices of a community choir. At one point the choir visits a palliative care unit. Bokma is brought to tears by how a simple song can raise the spirit of those facing their final breath. The narrative is poignant and compelling.

Although it wasn't Bokma's original intention, the book became more of a personal memoir than a work of journalism. Her path kept returning to her broken relationship with her family, in particular her mother, a woman she had always admired.

The new age altar didn't survive the year, but Bokma has cut back on her alcohol consumption, pulled the plug on the TV and learned to accept her life with gratitude. Her house is a much tidier place, due to Marie Kondo, and, after more than 30 years of marriage, she has rethought her relationship with her husband.

Perhaps most importantly, her year-long journey has brought some reconciliation with her mother, helping to mend a rift that opened more than 35 years ago.

"She read the book. I had to show it to her, she's in it so much," Bokma says. "I thought maybe that would be the end, that we would never speak again. I had no idea how she would react.

"The next morning she called me at 8 a.m. She had stayed up all night and read it. She didn't hate it. She didn't like it, or love it. She corrected a couple of things.

"And said 'I do love you.' That was the first time I had heard that in a long time.'"

What: Book launch for "My Year of Living Spiritually," by Anne Bokma. A reading by Bokma plus a conversation with Tom Wilson, author of the bestselling memoir "Beautiful Scars." Musical performances by Lyla Miklos, Darcy Mitchison and J.P. Morrison

When: Saturday, Oct. 26, 7 p.m.

Where: First Unitarian Church of Hamilton, 170, Dundurn St. S.

grockingham@thespec.com

905-526-3331 | @RockatTheSpec

grockingham@thespec.com

905-526-3331 | @RockatTheSpec

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Opinion | Graham Rockingham: A year of living spiritually without religion - TheSpec.com

CHITRA KHARI

I am sure that you will all agree with me, that despite the Philippines being a Christian nation, there is a possibility of having room for different perspectives of spirituality. Yet, we would nod to the fact that spirituality is a universal human experience and forms the core of our fundamental nature. Since ages, human beings have walked the path of spirituality to search for the meaning of their existence.

Spirituality relates with finding a connection with some higher power. The literary definition of spirituality relates with finding meaning, purpose and connectedness (with all entities). Now the big question comes: Can spirituality be experienced only in meditation halls, temples, churches, mosques or can it be experienced even within the organizational context? And, if yes, then how is this experience made possible within organizations, and what benefit can organizations and individuals derive out of it. This is a broader question which I am trying to answer here.

You might be wondering why there is there a need of spirituality at workplaces. The answer lies in todays complex, ambiguous, uncertain and highly volatile business environment. Things are interrelated like never before (yet we feel disconnected). The recession at one part of the globe has a ripple effect on the other sides of the planet. Downsizing, layoffs, constant pressure from jobs, use of temporary workforce, long working hours and changes in social structures (downfall of joint families and rising nuclear families) have generated the feeling of alienation in individuals. People feel that despite being connected through the Internet of things, they are isolated, empty and find their life meaningless. All this outer turmoil has triggered an inner journey towards finding meaning and purpose in life.

As people spend most of their substantial time in the office, organizations can take charge of filling this inner void in individuals through providing them meaning, purpose and a sense of strong connectedness with the larger society. Organizations can provide purpose and meaning to employees by integrating and practicing universal spiritual values such as benevolence, integrity, compassion, mutuality and respect. Such organizations are kind, careful and affectionate towards all the stakeholders (internal and external); mindful of their actions towards others and show congruence between their words and actions.

For example, these organizations focus on serving the larger community (or society) by producing earth-friendly products and avoid actions that harm other entities. Workplace spirituality make people realize how ones organization is fitting in the larger picture, with respect to meeting the economic and social goals in a balancing manner. This would generate social value along with the economic value that in turn, would make organizations meaningful for employees as they will feel that they are part of a larger cause.

Employees engaged in such organizations would sense the contribution towards organizational vision through their work that marks a difference in others lives which in turn, instills a sense of self-worth in them. Employees feel their life has meaning, feel more connected with the larger community and develop deep emotional bonding with their respective organizations. The notion of making a difference in others lives enhances positive feelings and well-being of the individuals (doing the kind act). Positive feelings act as antidote to stress, and we know that happy employees are the most productive employees. Organizations with a spiritual element enjoy good public reputation which further reinforces employees reputation in society, making employees glued to the organization for a longer time.

Thus, integrating spirituality in the workplace is a win-win approach due to its benefits for employees, organizations and of course, the larger society. I hope to have set a favorable tone for a spiritual element in organizations. I leave it to you readers to decide.

Dr. Chitra Khari is an assistant professor at the Institute of Management at Nirma University in India, where she teaches organizational behavior and emotional intelligence. She is a member of the Management, Spirituality and Religion Interest Group of the Academy of Management where De La Salle University is a part. Email: chitrakhari045@gmail.com

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Workplace and spirituality: Meeting of opposites - The Manila Times

St. Michael is widely known as the archangel who fought back Satan and cast him from Heaven. It is believed that his name, Michael, is closely associated with this spiritual battle and reminds us all how we should live our lives.

According to theSt. Andrew Daily Missal, The name Michael means, in Hebrew, who is like God? and recalls the battle in heaven between the prince of the heavenly host and the devil, a battle which began with Lucifers rebellion and continues down the ages.

It is believed that Michaels battle cry was exactly that Who is like God? enacting judgement on Satans desire to be like God. Many images of St. Michael contain this phrase in Latin on his shield, Quis ut Deus?

This is in fact the definition of Michael in the Hebrew language and further recalls the temptation in the Garden, when Satan tried to lure Adam and Eve into taking the fruit by saying, you will be like God.

The meaning of St. Michaels name reminds us that we should not try to be like God. This may seem like an obvious statement, but how often do we play God in our lives?

We tend to want to be in complete charge, and often get upset when things dont go our way. At a subconscious level we somehow think that we rule the world and should control every aspect of it.

In other words, the more prideful we become, the more like God we think we are.

The true heart of a Christian is to be close to the ground, humble, in every sense of the word. This does not mean we need to let others trample over us like a used carpet, but that we need to recognize our place in the world as created beings, entirely dependent on God.

When we truly realize that and let it sink into our heart, our lives will radically change. The next time something goes wrong in our lives, instead of getting angry and doing something even worse, we will be able to accept it from God.

Humility is the key to holiness, and even St. Michaels name reminds us of that simple fact.

Excerpt from:

The spiritual meaning of St. Michaels name reminds us how we should live our lives - Aleteia EN

Fitness

The Class by Taryn Toomey, the New York City-based yoga and boot camp fusion, willswing throughPhiladelphia on October 19th.

The Class by Taryn Toomey has been described as a spiritual experience. Find out for yourself when the NYC-based yoga and boot camp fusion visits Philly on October 19th. / Photograph courtesy of the Class by Taryn Toomey

Its no secret that maintaining an active lifestyle can benefit not just your body but your mind, too. Aside from boosting heart health and overall longevity, exercise can improve your mental and emotional health, partly because working out helps your brain release endorphins and, in our best Elle Woods voice: endorphins make you happy.

But sometimes, fitness can feel transformative for that intangible part of ourselves: the soul. In fact, many fitness enthusiasts consider their beloved boutique gyms and studios a kind of church due to the emphasis on community, ritual, and self-reflection. While some chains have received backlash for commodifying their quasi-spiritual, self-care experiences, its tough to deny that working out, whether solo or with others, can help us feel fulfilled and more in tune with ourselves and our surroundings.

This October, youll get another opportunity to experience fitness as a potential spiritual practice. The Class by Taryn Toomey, the ber popular movement-based workout, just announced an East Coast metro tour, including a one-day stopover in Philadelphia.

The Class will pop up in Philly for the very first time on October 19th with two 60-minute sessions. Even better: Both classes will be taught by Taryn Toomey herself, founder and owner of the Class. The tour will also feature live music from guitarist and vocalist Conner Youngblood and drummer Caleb Spaulding.

Based in New York City, the Class by Taryn Toomey consists of simple, repetitive cardio and strength-based exercises that results in an energetic fusion of yoga and plyometrics. The Class works one muscle group at a time, repeating that one movement the entire length of a single song. As a result, students often claim they undergo a physical, mental, emotional, and even partial transcendent journey that usually involves the releasing of unexpressed emotions and physical discomfort. As Toomey put it, the Class is a a wringing out, literally and figuratively, of the body, mind, and soul.

Toomey officially founded the Class in 2013, after teaching step aerobics and yoga for a number of years, but felt herself longing for something more. Through my own research and discovery, using myself as a case study, I started using my self-prescribed medicine of music and movement coupled with community and strength to work out certain life experiences and emotions, Toomey says. I began sharing my medicine [which later became the Class] with friends and community in the basement of my apartment building, donating all proceeds to a charity in Peru. The music- and movement-driven practice blew up, becoming popular among celeb devotees like Drew Barrymore and Naomi Watts.

The idea of an East Coast metro tour came directly from the Class enthusiasts who arent based in New York City but wanted to experienceToomeys workout anyway. Toomey decided to bring the Class to cities where it has never been (but heard a lot from) in order to expand the empowering workout to more people. The tour will kick off in its hometown of NYC and include additional stopovers in Boston, D.C., Chicago, Nashville, and Atlanta.

Tickets for the Philly classes, which will be held at 9 a.m. and 11 a.m., cost $65. Buy themhere. Both classes will be held at City Winery in Center City (990 Filbert Street). Make sure to BYO mat!

Continued here:

This Spiritual Fitness Experience Is Coming to Philly for the First Time Ever - phillymag.com

Vittore Buzzi

Every Christian should want to grow spiritually, but spiritual growth is not automatic. Just like malnutrition can stunt physical growth and a traumatic event can stunt emotional growth, these four misconceptions can hinder your spiritual growth.

1. Spiritual age does not equal spiritual maturity.If youve been a Christian for 40 years, that doesnt automatically mean that you are more mature than someone whos been a Christian for only a few years. We see this in everyday life. Sometimes youll find a 16-year-old that is more mature than a 40-year-old. Age doesnt automatically equal maturity.Spiritual growth isnt automatic. Its something you have to be intentional about.

2. Spiritual growth is not simply you trying harder to be holy, but allowing God to work in you and transform you.This is the whole point of the book of Galatians. Spiritual growth is not a checklist of things you have to do to earn Gods approval.The Apostle Paul talked about the difference between living by the flesh and walking in the Spirit. Living by the flesh is you trying on your own to be a more holy person. That will absolutely wear you out.

Living by the Spirit is like having a navigation app tell you where to go when you drive somewhere new. Living by the Spirit is not one of those self-driven cars that does all the work for you. Living by the Spirit doesnt mean you dont take responsibility. Living by the Spirit is like having a navigation map point out where to go and where to turn. The Holy Spirit is guiding you. Butnot only is the Holy Spirit your guide through life, Hes your power. Hes the engine in the car of your life, propelling you forward. Its still up to you to turn the steering wheel where the Spirit tells you to go. Its still up to you to push the little pedal on the bottom of the floorboard, but when you push the pedal its the engine that makes it go. The Holy Spirit will guide you and the Spirit will empower you to grow, but you still have a part to play.

3. Agreement is not the same as obedience.This is the flip side of #2. Its important to understand that there is a huge difference between agreement and obedience. Let me illustrate it this way: I think we would all agree that eating healthy is good for you.If you struggle with your weight or perhaps your health, I would bet that you would agree that you need to make healthier choices when you eat. Agreement is not the issue. Its following through with what you agree with that makes all the difference.To grow, we actually have to do something.

4. Spiritual disciplines dont exist to punish you, but to free you.Anytime you hear the word discipline, we automatically associate negative thoughts to it. No one likes to be disciplined. No one likes discipline. But we need it. Spiritual disciplines dont exist to punish you and steal your joy.And spiritual growth is definitely not a checklist of things you have to do to keep God happy. Again, go back to the book of Galatians.

God doesnt give us spiritual disciplines as a way to punish us or keep us in chains, but as a way to free us.Think of it like diet and exercise. Diet and exercise are both disciplines. And we can look as diet and exercise as a way to punish you and make you miserable, which will pretty much guarantee that you wont stick with diet and exercise.In reality, diet and exercise dont exist to punish you, but to free you. To free you with more energy, with a better outlook on life, to free you with better health and to free you from the complications of obesity and bad health.

In the moment, no one is saying diet and exercise are amazing! But once you seeand feel the results, arent you glad that you diet and exercise?Spiritual disciplines operate in the same way. They dont exist to punish you, but to free you.

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4 Misconceptions That Keep You From Growing Spiritually - Patheos

My Year of Living Spiritually by Anne Bokma(Douglas and McIntyre, 2019, 24.95)

I'll admit, it's been a very long time since I have been able to sit down and read a book. Don't get me wrong, I love reading. In fact, I read at least one newspaper a day -- sometimes more, seemingly endless articles and reports, and information to make me a better teacher. Still I wasn't able to sit down and read a book from beginning to end. That is, until I started devouring Anne Bokma's new release, My Year of Living Spiritually.

The Hamilton-based award-winning freelance journalist and creator of the fantastically popular 6-Minute Memoir which tasks locals with creating themed short stories about their lived experiences, has outdone herself one more time.

We meet Bokma in mid-life. She is not in crisis, but she is looking for something more. That lays the groundwork for her year of living spiritually, chronicling each month's journey to find greater depth of meaning, connection, simplicity and ultimately, inner peace.

This book is for those who think for themselves and want to have a spiritual life without the baggage associated with organized religion. Bokma, who left the Dutch-Calvinist Canadian Reformed Church at 20, joined the growing group of individuals who may or may not believe in God, but who share a deep connection to nature and the Earth. Known collectively as spiritual but not religious (SBNR), Bokma tells us it's the fastest -growing faith group in the Western world.

Making use of her eagerness to find answers to life's questions yet relying on her reporter's skepticism to remain objective, Bokma invites readers to vicariously experience her 12-month sampling of spirituality.

January, the month of hope and fresh starts. A chance to try out new morning routines and to once and for all, put an end to that obsession women have with busyness. By the end of the year, only the most essential practices remain.

February finds Bokma creating sacred space on a budget while trying to avoid spiritual appropriation. Ultimately, Bokma morphs her alter into a collection of meaningful keepsakes and personal items that show she is charting her own spiritual path.

In celebration of a secular Lent, Bokma gives up her beloved wine for 40 days beginning in March. Fortunately, Bokma's husband let her in on a well-kept secret: Catholics have a fallback plan that allows them to "break the fast" on each of the six Sabbaths of Lent. This makes getting through the ritual much more manageable and agreeable for everyone concerned.

In April, Bokma explores improving her inner dialogue with the help of a "soul coach." She also spends quiet time in a sensory-deprivation chamber better known as a float tank.

When that quest for quiet goes well, Bokma opts to spend 48 hours alone in a secluded luxury tree-house retreat where she rediscovers the wonders of spending time disconnecting from technology and reconnecting with nature.

May finds Bokma "forest bathing" -- walking in the woods and talking with the trees to find out how to make life matter. During this existential experience Bokma observes, "How like a dew drop we are, I think, so often trembling and hanging on for dear life." Ain't that the truth.

Her spiritual journey takes her on a pilgrimage to Concord, Massachusetts, where Henry David Thoreau spent two years living, walking, playing his flute and writing about the local plants and animals.

Thoreau was also a founding member of transcendentalism, which is based on the belief that people and nature are inherently good. Transcendentalism established the distinction between religion and spirituality.

It's in Thoreau's beloved Walden Pond that Bokma conducts her own spiritual baptism.

June brings the antithesis of May when Bokma actively searches for her voice. She starts the chapter with a quote from the French singer Edith Piaf: "Singing is a way of escaping. It's another world. I'm no longer on Earth."

Many of us are unable to relate to Piaf's adoration of singing. Possibly someone told us when we were young that we couldn't carry a tune, or perhaps, like Bokma, our first solo performance in front of a sizable crowd didn't sound quite the way we thought it would.

Joining a weekly neighbourhood drop-in group that sing together at a local pub gives Bokma the confidence and freedom to toss aside her self-consciousness, "like a bouquet thrown by a drunken bride," and find her true voice.

Then a private music lesson goes well and Bokma is encouraged to keep singing, "for the joy of it." Her next stop is the Hamilton-based choir, Singin' Women, made up of homeless and precariously housed women and their allies. Yet, all cares evaporate when the singing begins.

After a couple of revelationary singing retreats as well as some time spent with a choir singing for chronically ill and dying patients, Bokma realizes singing in a group is not only good for body and soul, it also increases social connectedness, a sense of belonging and all of that is good.

This is a powerful chapter that can trigger tear-filled moments. It's a good place to stop reading for the day in order to process Bokma's spiritual journey through the first half of 2017 as well as the intense feelings that readers may experience.

July is certainly a great month to take a trip, but it's a psychedelic trip with therapeutic overtones that Bokma embarks on with the help of an ayahuasca ceremony, holotropic breathwork, and some magic mushrooms. Her guided experiences take Bokma through the process of letting go of children and motherhood and realizing the everlasting bond between mothers and daughters, but it also gives the reader a brutally honest account of her relationships with her own two daughters and especially her husband, Jeff.

August is a busy month dealing with religious trauma syndrome (RTS) that encapsulates pretty much the entire dogma of organized religion and leaves individuals suffering from anxiety, depression, shame, guilt, perfectionism, and a sense of being unlovable.

It's also the chapter that asks you to think of Jesus as a protector and a radical who challenged the authorities of his time.

This is also the time that Bokma explores her local Unitarian church whose welcoming philosophy includes believing in inherent worth and dignity, a free and responsible search for truth and meaning, and respect for the interdependent web of all existence.

Bokma also explores a very long list of secular gatherings including drumming circles, secular alcoholics anonymous meetings, storytelling events, death cafes, and the Women's March on Washington, in order "to nurture that shared ethical basis."

September brought an exploration of supernatural states like chakras, reiki, tarot card readings, past-life regression therapy and mediums.

October is spent meeting Tim, the brother Bokma never knew she had. It was also spent exploring all aspects of death and coming to terms with it over dinner with a group of women friends.

November ushers in the ultimate spiritual practice -- gratitude as well as rebuilding relationships.

December becomes the month Bokma lets go of exhausting Christmas traditions (two years ago I also decided to give money, chocolate, and a few trinkets, go out for Chinese food, and then see a movie), and decluttered and organized not only her house but her personal life.

Being the same age as Bokma, I often found myself thinking, I tried reiki or tarot readings, "OMG that same thing happened to me at that age," or I remember feeling the exact same way when I encountered that situation. There's a familiarity, unity, perceived sisterhood, and natural comfortableness that comes with these shared experiences.

Interspersed throughout Bokma's spiritual journey are interesting, often heart-wrenching stories of her life. It was a privilege to share in Bokma's year of self-discovery and learning to love herself. I can hardly wait for the next chapter.

Doreen Nicoll is a freelance writer, teacher, social activistand member of several community organizations working diligently to end poverty, hunger and gendered violence.

Image: My Year of Living Spiritually/Facebook

Read the original:

'My Year of Living Spiritually' is a book for the spiritual but not religious - rabble.ca

Nonfiction

Oct. 1

Jesus in Me: Experiencing the Holy Spirit as a Constant Companion by Anne Graham Lotz (Multnomah, $23.99, ISBN 978-0525651048). The Bible teacher and daughter of Billy Graham unpacks key biblical lessons alongside personal insights to explore how she sees the Holy Spirit shaping her everyday life.

The Preachers Wife: The Precarious Power of Evangelical Women Celebrities by Kate Bowler (Princeton Univ., $29.95, ISBN 978-0691179612) Historian Bowler examines the rise of Christian women celebrities (in particular, those in what she calls a celebrity preachers wife role, like Joyce Meyer, Beth Moore, and Victoria Osteen) to explore how they balance the demands of celebrity culture and a conservative, male-dominated faith.

7 Days of Christmas by Jen Hatmaker (Abingdon, $21.99, ISBN 978-1-5018-8827-4) addresses seven key areasfood, clothes, spending, media, possessions, waste, stresswhose practices Christian readers can consider during Christmas for reducing consumption to bring more joy into ones life.

Bible Prophecy and You: Predictions, Fulfillments, and What to Watch for Next by Len Woods and Christopher D. Hudson (Barbour, $14.99 paper, ISBN 978-1-64352-097-1) describes predictions about Israel, other biblical kingdoms, and Jesus, before detailing predictions about Israel and the end-times found in scripture.

Reclaiming Judaism from Zionism: Stories of Personal Transformation, edited by Carolyn L. Karcher (Interlink, $20 paper, ISBN 978-1-62371-914-2). Forty Jewish activists and scholars share autobiographical essays describing how they, as devout American Jews, disentangled themselves from Zionism.

52 Promises from God: Reflections to Soothe Your Soul by Jessie Seneca (Momosa, $15 paper, ISBN 978-0-9844804-3-2) asks readers to jump-start their faith and assures them that God fulfills promises to those who follow his word.

How to Pray: A Simple Guide for Normal People by Pete Greig (NavPress, $15.99 paper, ISBN 978-1-64158-188-2). Greig, cofounder of the 24-7 Prayer movement, urges readers to pray with passion, explaining to Christians how prayer is conversation with God.

Strong, Brave, Loved: Empowering Reminders of Who You Really Are by Holley Gerth (Revell, $18.99, ISBN 978-0-8007-2955-4). Blogger and life coach Gerth offers 60 short devotions geared toward empowering women, as well as prompts for journaling and personal reflection.

Everything You Need by David Jeremiah (W, $26.99, ISBN 978-0-7852-2393-1). Jeremiah, founder of the international ministry Turning Point, explores 2 Peter 1:510 to highlight seven critical tools: virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, kindness, and love.

Rhythms of Renewal: Trading Stress and Anxiety for a Life of Peace and Purpose by Rebekah Lyons (Zondervan, $24.99, ISBN 978-0-310-35614-1) details the four rhythms that she believes lead to a vibrant life: rest, renew, connect, and create.

Prosperity Magick: Spells for Wealth by Cassandra Eason (Sterling, $16.95, ISBN 978-1-4549-3678-7). Druid magical practitioner Eason describes spells intended to help readers get promotions, win the lottery, overcome debt, and avoid costly scams, among others.

Oct. 4

The Godman and the Sea: The Empty Tomb, the Trauma of the Jews, and the Gospel of Mark by Michael J. Thate (Univ. of Pennsylvania, $79.95, ISBN 978-0-8122-5151-7). An associate research scholar at Princeton closely examines the Gospel of Mark, judging it an exemplary text that responds to and makes meaning of the trauma arising from the crucified and missing body of Jesus.

Oct. 8

Unfollow: A Memoir of Loving and Leaving the Westboro Baptist Church by Megan Phelps-Roper (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). Phelps-Roper, a granddaughter of Westboro Baptist Church founder Fred Phelps, provides a vivid account of her upbringing and explains her reasons for leaving the controversial church.

Bitchcraft: Simple Spells for Sweet Revenge and Everyday Annoyances by Kerry Colburn (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $15.99, ISBN 978-0-358-19698-3) provides spells to empower the modern woman to exact revenge and take charge.

Breathing as Spiritual Practice: Experiencing the Presence of God by Will Johnson (Inner Traditions, $14.99 paper, ISBN 978-1-62055-687-0). Buddhist retreat leader Johnson offers a close look at the importance of breath in each major religion, including within the Jewish teachings of ruach and the Islamic poetry of Rumi.

The Ancient Magick of Trees: Identify and Use Trees in Your Spiritual and Magickal Practice by Gregory Michael Brewer (Llewellyn, $24.99 paper, ISBN 978-0-7387-6162-6). Part field guide and part magical resource, this compendium seeks to help readers identify more than 100 common trees across North America and Europe, as well as discover their medicinal and magical properties.

Modern Tantric Buddhism: Embodiment and Authenticity in Dharma Practice by Justin Von Bujdoss (North Atlantic, $19.95 paper, ISBN 978-1-62317-395-1) is a guide for practitioners, dharma teachers, chaplains, and clergy who want to understand and apply Vajrayana (tantric) Buddhism in the context of contemporary life.

Domestic Monastery by Ronald Rolheiser (Paraclete, $16, ISBN 978-1-64060-372-1). Friar Rolheiser examines how the life of the monastery can apply to those who dont live inside the walls of the cloister.

A Theory of Everything (That Matters): A Brief Guide to Einstein, Relativity, and His Surprising Thoughts on God by Alister McGrath (Tyndale Momentum, $22.99, ISBN 978-1-4964-3807-2) examines the life and work of Einstein.

Welcoming the Unwelcome: Wholehearted Living in a Brokenhearted World by Pema Chdrn (Shambhala, $24.95, ISBN 978-1611805659). Chdrn, a Buddhist nun and internationally bestselling author and poet, asks readers to embrace suffering to cultivate courage, love, and connection in this collection of essays and meditations.

Oct. 11

The Flowing Grace of Now: Encountering Wisdom Through the Weeks of the Year by Macrina Wiederkehr (Sorin, $15.95 paper, ISBN 978-1-932057-18-8). Benedictine Wiederkehr offers weekly reflections in order to reveal the spirituality of everyday life, inviting readers to take in the quotes of renowned teachers and learn from their wisdom.

Oct. 15

Mary Magdalene Never Wore Blue Eye Shadow: How to Trust the Bible When Truth and Tradition Collide by Amanda Hope Haley (Harvest House, $15.99 paper, ISBN 978-0-7369-7512-4) connects scripture to popular literature, providing Christian readers a reference point for its interpretations.

The Will of God: Understanding and Pursuing His Ultimate Plan for Your Life by Charles F. Stanley (Howard, $26, ISBN 978-1-982104-79-5). Pastor Stanley seeks to help readers discover Gods purpose in this guide to discovering how scripture addresses everyday decisions and challenges.

Start with Jesus: How Everyday Disciples Will Renew the Church by Julianne Stanz (Loyola, $17.95 paper, ISBN 978-0-8294-4884-9) aims to help Christians grows in relationship with Jesus through individual journaling and group exercises.

Hexing the Patriarchy: 26 Potions, Spells, and Magical Elixirs to Embolden the Resistance by Ariel Gore (Seal, $22, ISBN 978-1-58005-874-2) offers a blueprint for the feminist uprising, offering incantations, enchantments, rituals, and wisdom designed to protect women and bring down the patriarchy.

Be the Bridge by Latasha Morrison (WaterBrook, $17.99 paper, ISBN 978-0-525-65288-5). A community organizer and advocate for racial reconciliation offers a call for Christians to move toward deeper bonds of friendship and more empathetic understanding of others as a response to the current divisive culture.

Oct. 16

Qigong and the Tai Chi Axis: Nourishing Practices for Body, Mind, and Spirit by Mimi Kuo-Deemer (Ixia, $16.95 paper, ISBN 978-0-486-83737-6). This introduction to qigong and the yin-yang balance of tai chi, the ancient Chinese art of movement meditation, offers insights into these practices benefits.

Oct. 22

Ash and Starlight: Prayers for the Chaos and Grace of Daily Life by Arianne Braithwaite Lehn (Chalice, $18.99, ISBN 978-0-8272-0080-7). Pastor Braithwaite Lehn provides prayers for confession, transition, waiting, and struggle.

Oct. 29

Speaking of God: An Essential Guide to Christian Thought by Anthony G. Siegrist (Herald, $18.99 paper, ISBN 978-1-5138-0606-8). Pastor and theologian Siegrist aims to help readers recover a basic language around Christian theology, explaining concepts such as creation, sin, redemption, the church, and discipleship.

The Karma of Cats: Spiritual Wisdom from Our Feline Friends (Sounds True, 17.95 paper, ISBN 978-1-68364-253-4). Spiritual teachers, writers, and animal experts share stories and reflections on lessons learned from their feline friends, exploring the unique ways cats embody core spiritual values.

Fiction

Oct. 1

What Comes My Way by Tracie Peterson (Bethany House, $15.99 paper, ISBN 978-0-7642-1904-7). Ella Fleming, a member of the Brookstone Wild West Extravaganza, a wild west show comprising all-female performers, is on the run in the third installment of the Brookstone Brides series.

The More the Merrier: An Amish Christmas Romance by Linda Byler (Good Books, $14.99 paper, ISBN 978-1-68099-470-4). Set during the Great Depression, this romance centers on the Miller family and the death of patriarch Eli Miller, an event that rallies their Amish community around Elis wife and eight children, but only for a brief period.

Stitches in Time by Suzanne Woods Fisher (Revell, $15.99 paper, ISBN 978-0-8007-2752-9). Horse trainer Sam Schrock feels a new lease on life when schoolteacher Mollie Graber moves to the Amish community of Stoney Ridge.

Oct. 8

Synapse by Steven James (Thomas Nelson, $16.99 paper, ISBN 978-0-7852-2525-6). Thirty years in the future, when Kestrel Hathaway, a pastor in Cincinnati, witnesses a terror attack, shes drawn into a world of conspiracies and lies that she and Jordan, her cognizant robot, have to untangle before its too late.

The Last Man at the Inn: A Novel of One Mans Quest to Believe by R. William Bennett (Shadow Mountain, $17.99, ISBN 978-1-62972-603-8) imagines how a contemporary of JesusSimon, an ordinary spice merchantintersects with the Christian messiah at the major milestones of his life and ministry.

Oct. 14

A Cross to Kill by Andrew Huff (Kregel, $15.99 paper, ISBN 978-0-8254-2274-4). John Cross, a mild-mannered small-town pastor, used to be an assassin for the CIAand his old life is coming back to haunt him in this first book of Huffs Shepherd Suspense series.

Oct. 22

The Bright Unknown by Elizabeth Byler Younts (Thomas Nelson, $16.99 paper, ISBN 978-0-7180-7568-2). Brighton and her friend escape a rural Pennsylvania asylum, which has been the only home shes ever known. With no real name or money, they embark upon a journey across 1940s Middle America in search of a new home.

Read more:

Religion and Spirituality Books Preview: October 2019 - Publishers Weekly

As the Emmys and seemingly everyone watching in the audience and at home poured out love for Phoebe Waller-Bridge and her Fleabag, the little show that could but almost didn't (three years ago in this same month a number of rave reviews still had a hard time convincing people to watch), I thought about a different show:This Way Up. It's a series bought by Hulu from its British originators and, well, more on that shortly.

But I also thought how different the massive love for Fleabag this week was from the situation the show was in three years ago, which is helpful when considering an overlooked show like This Way Up, which some are already calling a cousin of sorts to Fleabag.

For starters, five weeks before Fleabag's first seasonpremiered on Amazon as a co-production I wrote a column about how Amazon was struggling, as a new content provider, in differentiating its originals from shows it had streaming rights to, having bought them from others. In short: Amazon shows weren't getting much special love; they were tossed in with the rest of the offerings, like products. It was hard to get noticed that way since people were very new to the idea that Amazon made its own TV series in addition to selling toilet paper and watches, etc.

There wasn't much hype for Fleabag, or advertising. There were 19 reviews for it (including mine) before it aired a paltry amount, but the reviews were glowing (it had a score of 88 on Metacritic, which equates to "universal acclaim"). Still, what followed was months of critics saying, "You should watch this show on Amazon called Fleabag. It's brilliant!" And people would say, "Amazon makes TV shows? And what's a Fleabag? Is sounds gross?"

So, yeah, three years later and four Emmy wins in big categories series, lead actress, writing, directing and the only thing that's changed for other small, dying-to-be-discovered gems is thatit's exponentially harder. Peak TV very clearly hasn't peaked.

But here's the thing This Way Up really is brilliant. Irish actress and comic Aisling Bea (pronounced Ash-ling) created, wrote and stars as a troubled Irish Londoner, recovering from a mental breakdown of unknown origin and gingerly putting her life back in order, but slipping by degrees every day.

When This Way Up came out on Aug. 21, only a measly four outlets reviewed it four! THR's own Dan Fienberg reviewed it favorably, but I happen to like it a lot more than he does (even when critics agree they tend to disagree on the little things). Three of the four reviews mentioned Fleabag (and Catastrophe, another British co-pro from Amazon that starred Sharon Horgan, who is also excellent in This Way Up, which comes from her production company). The gist from those reviews is that This Way Up is really good but flawed and, hey, if you miss Fleabag, this will fill that void, but come up short in the process.

Well, sure, which shows wouldn't? Fleabag is a real rarity, particularly the first season. It's interesting that the four reviews of This Way Up I know three of the critics and like them very much, I will note in case you're getting the wrong vibe here mention that it's not particularly plot-driven and that it tends to ramble a bit.

To which I would add: So does Fleabag season 2 (that's a show I adore and will fight over to prove it but, come on all the resolution comes from the secondary characters and there's a lot of rambling about for our troubled heroine). Other shows that have indistinct plots: Atlanta, Master of None andabout 29 others.

What I saw in This Way Upare all the excellent parts that my three peers also saw, plus a perfectly fine structure, interactions that effectively defined the state of Aisling's character, Aine (pronounced Anya), and an ending that set up a second season I'm extremely eager to know will be coming.

In This Way Up, we meet Aine as she's getting out of a treatment facility (or "spa") after suffering a breakdown. Aine's sister Shona (Horgan) picks Aine up and takes her home, and we flash four months ahead to when Aine looks, on the surface, like she's functioning well enough, just adrift when she's not filling the air with non-stop joking and whipsaw banter. Aisling infuses Aine with that manic sense of "If I just smile and joke around everything will be fine or at least everyone will think I'm fine."

But Shona knows better she worries about Aine walking alone at night, tracking her movements by phone. Her obsessing is our hint that it was more than a breakdown. I thought This Way Upwas excellent at illustrating that the "normal" things going to work, interacting with strangers, cohabitating with a roommate were the moments in Aine's day where she was most vulnerable, where her joys were fleeting, her connections superficial and her separation from family a little too much to bear. For me, the season was about a person trying to cope with life and getting it about 60 percent right on her best days.

The introduction of people beyond Shona her boyfriend (played by Aasif Mandvi), his family, Aine's roommate's family, a humorless employer (Tobias Menzies) who slowly starts falling for her, etc. was less random than it appeared; these were small encounters that brought glimpses of potential light to Aine or further delineated her woes.

What I also saw was something precise and outstanding Aisling herself. It's that feeling I got when Waller-Bridge was at the Television Critics Association summer press tour in August of 2016 andyou just knew. You could see it on the screen and you could see it in person. Aisling has the same kind of tour-de-force sense of humor and her writing in This Way Up is utterly fantastic. She injects her own character with a manic self-deprecation used to keep others at bay just as Waller-Bridge does as Fleabag.

But Fleabag and Aine are suffering from different things it's more well-defined for Fleabag in the first season, without a doubt, but I'd argue the same relative underlying unhappiness she's living through in the second season is just as amorphous as what Aine is going through trying to be happy for a day.

An argument could be made that Fleabag only really and truly cares about Boo in the first season and that vulnerable, unprotected nerve shines through only when she stops using humor and scathing asides as a defense mechanism, just as Aine cares most deeply for others who are suffering and keeps her guard up with family (but only half-up with Shona, whom Aine relies on for emotional support). Both Fleabag and Aine are complex women feeling deep hurt and discontent, the latter often an unexplained or ill-defined emotion which rings so true. Often with depression there's no one reason or easy explanation for why a person is spiraling. And that relentlessly nagging sense of unhappiness is hard to shake precisely because the root of it is indeterminate.

Over the course of six episodes of a mere 23 minutes each, Aisling's writing is a real revelation and her comedic sensibility spot-on. I was surprised at how often I would rewind scenes, marvel at the nuances in the writing scathing humor, bubbling sadness or delight in Aisling's fearless, all-in performance. This series, I thought, is vastly under-appreciated, in addition to having been completely lost in the Peak TV crush (a sentiment that was familiar from three years ago with Fleabag).

I hope more people discover how excellent This Way Up truly is and celebrate its own identity not just flatter it briefly before calling it a cousin to something else.

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Critic's Notebook: 'This Way Up' Is More Than a Spiritual Cousin to 'Fleabag' - Hollywood Reporter

There was a time when Juli Everett was hesitant to call herself a witch, or use the word in relation to her work.

Lately, she has shed that inhibition.

The 32-year-old licensed massage therapist was always called to help others through her lifelong interest in herbology, astrology and other techniques that foster spiritual and emotional wellness. She recalled being a middle school student in Sag Harbor and, after school, walking to Metaphysical Books and Tools, the now defunct Main Street store, to satisfy that innate curiosity at a time when alternative approaches to medicine, healing and self-care were not the trendy cultural fascination is today.

Throughout the years, she has come to reclaim the definition of what it means to be witch.

I believe the definition of a witch is a Woman In Total Control of Herself, she said, before adding, with emphasis, Period.

Personally, my belief is that every woman who walks the earth is a witch. The things that youre the absolute best at, and the things you can create, thats what youre a witch of.

Everett founded Knead and Seed two years ago, and it grew faster, and in different ways than she anticipated, becoming so much more than a massage business. The shop is located in a two-story house on a picturesque piece of property in a secluded and wooded area off Merchants Path, on the border of Sag Harbor and East Hampton.

The space where Everett operates her multi-faceted business is an extension of her personality. A large shelf covers one wall, stacked with books on astrology, massage and other forms she practices. The mantle over a large fireplace features, among other things, photos of both her great-grandmother and aunt, who she cites as big influences in her life. A chalkboard in the small working kitchen has a new message everyday; a deck of oracle cards are fanned out, face down, on a nearby counter.

Everett uses many methods to work with her clients, but usually starts by asking them to pull an oracle card. The simple action is usually enough to get the tears flowing or bring out emotions. Then she takes a look at their chart. Even people who start off as skeptics usually come back for more, she says. Its human nature.

People want to be told about themselves, she said. Thats why were here. We have to help ourselves so that whatever we decide to push out into the universe is successful. Otherwise its BS.

Though she never intended to portray herself as a jack of all trades, she sees a synergy in everything provided at the shop. Among the most popular offerings are the full moon and new moon goddess circle gatherings, where women are invited to come and share what theyve been experiencing and carrying with them in their lives in a judgment-free zone. In less than two years, more than 130 different women have attended the circles, which initially began as a one-time gathering of a few of her closest friends in the first week she was open.

Juli makes you feel accepted, and encourages you to show your truth in a safe environment surrounded by women who are supportive, said client Melissa Lynch. Its very hard to put into words. You just have to try it to understand it. Its something everyone should experience at least once.

She has magic hands, Lynch added. When you walk into Knead and Seed, you immediately feel welcomed.

Creating that feeling of acceptance is exactly what Everett intended. And though Knead and Seeds caters to all, there is no denying its devoted female clientele. Helping women harness their power is at the core of what Everett does, and she hopes to expand that mission with Knead and Seed as time goes by.

I wanted to start a place thats a safe space for women to land and feel validated, she said. I think they come with a sense of wanting to be spiritually connected to themselves with a group of women where everyone can feel validated.

She plans to expand her teaching abilities in the future, and wants to host more retreats, which is a service shes offered more recently. For now, she says she is simply grateful for the people who have walked through her doors, and is proud not only of what she has done for them, but what they have done for themselves.

Im just so thankful to all of the women that have stepped in and have been such a support to this place, she said. But mostly, that they keep showing up for themselves. Im just really thankful that people are becoming more open.

Knead and Seed is located at 146 Merchants Path, Sag Harbor

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Knead & Seed is a haven for spiritual, emotional wellness in Sag Harbor - Northforker

Experience a one-day Darshan retreat with spiritual guide Louix Dor Dempriey this weekend in Eagle. All are welcome to attend Darshan with Louix on Friday, Sept. 27 at 7:30 p.m. (by donation). The next day, Dempriey is hosting a one-day retreat from 10 a.m. 6 p.m. Both events will be held at Brush Creek Pavilion Studio.

Darshan is a gift from a spiritual master that can clear away karmic blocks and open chakran. The experience has been known to bring healings, clear the mind and induce states of bliss as well as bring peace and balance. Some have even had epiphanies.

Darshan with Dempriey provides the opportunity for people of all ages, faiths, beliefs, and walks of life to receive a personal blessing to the backdrop of world devotional music. Demprieys darshan can have profound transformational effects, which often evokes exalted states of bliss, kundalini rising and even healing of physical ailments.

During the one-day retreat, guests can immerse themselves in wisdom, grace, love and humor while receiving blessing and guidance to move into deeper levels of self-mastery. Throughout the day, participants will experience illuminating discourses and guided meditations. The retreat fee includes a vegan lunch.

For more information, pricing and registration for the one-day retreat, visit louix.org.

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This Darshan and one-day retreat in Eagle will bring spiritual awareness to all who attend - Vail Daily News

Shastri Boodan

Former prime minister Basdeo Panday was honoured on Saturday by the Tobago Circuit of the National Evangelical Spiritual Baptist Faith under the patronage of His Grace Archbishop Glenroy Jack.

Panday told the gathering at the Rovanels Resort and Conference Centre that he has not given up hope to see a nation united regardless of ethnic and cultural differences.

So that we can become the great nation that God intended us to be. he said.

Panday said the name Spiritual Shouter Baptist is unique to T&T as it is the only country to have a public holiday in its honour.

The former PM also gave an historical account of the decades of struggles of the Shouter Baptist movement to gain recognition.

He said his administration 1996-2001 also gave recognition to persons of the Orisha faith through the passing of the Orisha Marriage Act that legalised Orisha marriages in T&T.

He said the Orishas were treated in the same manner as the Hindus and Muslims under the British colonial government whose aim was to divide and rule the nation for the sake of power.

Panday later told Guardian Media that T&T is no closer to achieving the unity he dreams of because the constitution is causing the differences with people. He said unless constitutional reform takes place discrimination would always continue.

Panday also said he has no problem with a name change of the Piarco International Airport once the facility is operated with efficiently.

Continued here:

Panday honoured in Tobago by Spiritual Baptist - Trinidad Guardian

Auxiliary Bishop Andrew Cozzens talks with George Esseff of California, an emeritus member of the Institute for Priestly Formations Mission Advisory Council, during IPFs 25th anniversary celebration in July in Omaha, Nebraska. COURTESY FORD JACOBSEN

And it centered on a highly influential but, aside from those directly involved, little-known institute in Omaha, Nebraska.

The Institute for Priestly Formation, which this year is celebrating its 25th anniversary, offers retreats, spiritual direction and guidance, with a focus on seminarians and diocesan priests. Its offerings include a nine-week summer program on the campus of Creighton University, which this year attracted 177 seminarians from more than 60 U.S. dioceses, including five from the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

The institute also conducts retreats for bishops and seminary theologians, days of reflection for laity, theological forums and other programs.

Bishop Cozzens estimates that about 40 priests of the archdiocese have gone through spiritual direction training at IPF. Others have benefited from retreats and taught summer courses at the institute.

Bishop Cozzens said he first heard about IPF as a priest of the archdiocese in 2006, when he started work in seminary formation. He went on a 30-day IPF silent retreat at Creighton in the summer of 2008.

I would say that the retreat was for me a very life-changing experience. I joke, sometimes, that for me theres been two lives, one was before the retreat and one was after the retreat. And the one after was a whole lot better than the one before.

That retreat, with silence and time to be alone with God, brought a new way for Bishop Cozzens to view himself and his daily life with the Lord.

You cant escape yourself, he said. You have to deal with yourself. And then you learn that that allows you to engage the world in a different way.

It gave me a desire to have that be part of my whole life, that I would always live in Gods presence, that I would always try to be with him.

That focus on spirituality and carving out time to develop it is critically important, Bishop Cozzens said. Seminaries are busy places where much is accomplished but time is limited, he said.

And as Priesthood Sunday approaches Sept. 29 this year, a day set aside by Serra International to honor priests and affirm the role of the priesthood in the life of the Church people might reflect on ways to support the spiritual lives of their pastors and other priests, Bishop Cozzens said.

There are many ways to advance spiritual development, not just IPF, the bishop said. But it could be said that IPF has had a greater impact on the seminarians and priests in the United States than almost any other organization in the last 25 years, in terms of the depth of their impact helping priests and seminarians appreciate and grow in a life of prayer and in the skills of spiritual direction, said Bishop Cozzens, who is on IPFs corporate board as treasurer as well as its bishops and mission advisory councils. Father Joseph Taphorn, a native of Omaha who has been involved as a spiritual director with IPF and in January began serving as rector of The St. Paul Seminary School of Divinity, said it wasnt the case before, but now the archdiocese is asking its seminarians to attend an IPF summer session as they enter their studies at the graduate level seminary.

It gives a man an opportunity to have a very intentional and focused relationship with our Lord, Father Taphorn said of the sessions, which begin with an eight-day silent retreat. Its a chance to say, this is what were about this summer.

Father Jonathan Kelly, who teaches at the undergraduate St. John Vianney College Seminary in St. Paul, has been on two, 30-day retreats at the institute, in 2007 and 2017. He also has taught at IPF and helped direct the 30-day retreats, which he calls transformational.

Transformational is the Lord doing the work and speaking to us in a way that well never forget, Father Kelly said. The silence of a 30-day retreat and a good spiritual director (guiding the retreat) who stays silent, who might see it but waits for the Lord to say it, that is transformational.

As priests and seminarians develop their spiritual lives, they can help others grow in similar fashion, Bishop Cozzens said.

It really helps priests strengthen their own identity as a spiritual father and as a spiritual director as they serve in the priesthood, Bishop Cozzens said.

They (IPF) teach people how to bring their real lives into relationship with God, and that affects a mans preaching, that affects the way a man cares for people in very positive ways, Bishop Cozzens said. Its why we want our seminarians when possible to go through at an early stage, so that they early on begin to recognize that their lives are being brought into this relationship with God. And then they can help others to do that.

Tags: Priestly formation

Category: Local News

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Institute for Priestly Formation puts spiritual lives of priests front and center - The Catholic Spirit

Music and spirituality are two mediums frequently almost ubiquitously partnered in cultures around the world with the intention of enhancing engagement with the divine. Spiritual practices are infused with music to intensify the transpersonal components of worship, meditation, and ritual. Correspondingly, musical encounters are infused with spiritually-based beliefs and practices to provide individuals connections with themselves and others in uniquely powerful ways.

For many, this easy, reciprocal flow from music to spirituality may come as no surprise: both are malleable mediums responsive to the people engaging with them and the settings in which they are engaged. For instance,Amazing Graceperformed at a funeral in a church with a large congregation might be led with a louder volume, increased pressure, and heightened resonance to match the congregations energy as they worship through song. In contrast,Amazing Graceperformed bedside in a hospital room with a patient and caregivers might embody quieter, more prayerful qualities intending to comfortingly hold the patient in their depleted physical state and engender intimate musical sharing.

As music and spirituality intertwine, their boundaries become increasingly fluid to the point that distinguishing between one and the other becomes trivial. To be spiritual is to be musical, and to be musical is to be spiritual.

A similar malleability is also present in individuals health journeys. Objective characteristics of health such as symptom acuity/chronicity; treatment dosage and frequency; and curative versus palliative outcomes are subjectively experienced in response to the individuals values, morals, and disease trajectory. For instance, one persons 6 out of 10 pain is their daily baseline and thus easily managed, while anothers 6 out of 10 pain is breakthrough and requires treatment. Similarly, one person may prioritize the improved quality of life offered by palliative care while another may prioritize the potential increased longevity offered by curative treatments.

These dynamic, emergent qualities of music, spirituality, and health are a result of each being culturally situated phenomena. That is, the manner in which music, spirituality, and health are conceptualized and engaged with is directly informed by the distinct cultures in which they manifest. This leads to a fraught but important question: If music, spirituality, and health are each unto themselves complex phenomena derived from cultural factors, how do all three interact when they intersect in a singular encounter?

Board-certified music therapists frequently navigate this encounter in hospice. Hospice is a philosophy of care that prioritizes quality of life with six months or less to live, putting critical health issues at the forefront with limited time to facilitate resolution and closure. At such a juncture, spirituality can be a critical resource for patients and families who are simultaneously managing in the moment and preparing for the future. The type of resource spirituality can become (e.g., comfort in ritual, strength from scripture or peace through prayer/meditation/worship) is determined by the specific faith traditions of the patient not just an identified denomination but the explicit experiences patients engaged in as part of their spiritual practice.

Music therapists assess those faith traditions for each patient and, coupled with a similar assessment of patients music traditions, craft music experiences that help patients become aware of and engage with their spiritually-based resources. These culturally informed clinical music processes interweave music, spirituality, and health in a way that affords patients agency in dictating the circumstances of their death. Yet, contemporary discussions in the music therapy literature have tended to frame spirituality from such a broad and generic stance that it becomes difficult for music therapists to locate spiritually-based resources in patients.

To address this limitation, my co-author (Cathleen Flynn) and I recently authored a paper that explored a specific culturally informed music, spiritual, and health intersection: music therapy for Christian patients and caregivers during imminent death. Using this intersection as a foundation, we developed a theoretical model positioning music therapy as a psychospiritual ministry providing patients and caregivers access to a faith-based resource the Holy Spirit that assists with transcendence as end-of-life transitions neared.

Transcendence, a difficult concept to lock down, is a movement beyond the typical, readily accessible experiences that define our day-to-day to experience the self and other in new ways that push beyond our known thresholds. For Christian patients who are imminently dying, that transcendence is vertical, an upward trajectory that moves them closer to an integration with the divine as they move beyond the corporeal. For Christian caregivers, that transcendence is horizontal, an outward trajectory that moves them closer to mortal support structures that assist in their transition to bereavement. The Holy Spirit, an intermediary between the mortal and divine, is the faith-based avenue through which these different but concomitant transcendences occur. From this vantage point, the music therapist assumes a ministerial role, constructing dynamic music experiences that facilitate interactions with the Holy Spirit promoting patient and caregiver transcendence.

Such explicit framing is ethically fraught. First, we do not argue that adopting a Christian lens is the only way or the correct way for music therapy to be practiced in hospice; rather, we introduce this theoretical model as a broad template for conducting spiritual assessments of patients from diverse traditions and beliefs. Second, this is a person-centered model wherein any implementation of Christian theology into music therapy processes is cued by the patient rather than introduced by the music therapist; this is an essential aspect as it avoids the perception that music therapists might leverage privilege to proselytize to patients. Third, there are numerous avenues for ethical and effective clinical support of Christian patients and families at the end of life, and this model is not meant to be a linear prescription; rather, it is an exploratory avenue that opens a multitude of additional doorways for providing psychospiritual care.

As the baby boomer generation continues to advance in age, it will be increasingly important that healthcare systems are well positioned to provide comprehensive end-of-life care addressing mind, body, and spirit as equal partners in whole-person health. Music and spirituality continue to be important day-to-day aspects for many people, and exploring diverse permutations of music, spirituality, and health intersections can be an important contribution to this pursuit of the good death.

Featured Image Credit: selective focus photo of brown guitar on white pillow by Kari Shea. Royalty free viaUnsplash.

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Music and spirituality at the end of life - OUPblog

Princess Diana is known for her relationships with psychics and healers for critical information about her life. throughout her later years, she was becoming increasingly more paranoid. She felt like she couldnt trust anyone, and in turn she sought help from these types of people. According to the latest episode of Fatal Voyage Diana: Case Solved, she felt the need to check in with her numerous psychics all the time. She was definitely not the only famous woman to ask these types of people for help.

These psychics were there to listen to Diana only, not judge her, and that is understandable given her position that she would want someone to just listen. But it is plain to see that these people contributed to her paranoia. Sally Morgan, known as Psychic Sally, was one of these people whom Diana came to rely on.

I came into her life when she was really making decisionsfor her own happiness. And she had made a decision that shes the only one thatcould make herself happy, Morgan recalls. She wasnt going to rely on anyoneelse. I think she felt she had a lot of reasons to worry about an early death.She felt that. There were times when she would ring me three or four times aday and then there were times when she would ring me once a day, normally inthe morning.

Diana also looked to Simone Simmons a spiritual healer, forguidance. They would spend hours together on the phone. We met at the end ofthe 1993. By 95 we were firm friends. 96 I mean, we were literally, how do Iput it? Saw each other at least five times a week wherever Diana was in theworld she would phone me, Simmons says.

If Diana couldnt get through to Simmons, she would leavemessages for her instead. They became the best of friends. She wanted to constantlycheck in with her throughout the day and keep her updated on everything thatwas going on.

Its understandable how all this talk of the future anddeath could only fuel Dianas increasing paranoia. Another spiritual advisor,Rita Rogers, says she warned Princess Diana about an impending premonition.Rogers had regular visits with Diana and believed that the brakes in her car wouldbe tampered with. She also claims to have had a feeling of danger whenmeeting Dodi Fayed for the first time.

Simmons remembers how the psychic actually toldDiana that the Queen would die over a phone call. Such talk only increasedthe Princess clear paranoid state that something was about to happen.

She said, Rita has told me the Queen is going to die nextyear. This would be in 1994. She said that would mean that Charles would beKing and she would be Queen, Simmons recalls. Actually, I was shocked. Thefollowing year, she told me Rita had told her the Queen would abdicate. Shesaid it in all seriousness, she believed it. I asked her: I dont suppose thishas come from the same person who said the Queen was going to die?

Princess Diana also revealed to Simmons that she was driving home and her brakes appeared to fail. The scare really shook her to the core. One time she was driving home from seeing me and she said her brakes failed in heavy traffic. She bumped into the car in front of her and after making sure the driver was OK, she abandoned her car and jumped into a taxi to go home. Simmons says. She was terrified. She said Theyre trying to bump me off.

Princess Dianas relationships with healers, psychics, and the like only increased her ever-growing paranoid state. She was, however, correct that something was going to happen and she died in a tragic car accident in 1997.

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Princess Diana's Relationships With Psychics and Spiritual Healers - Showbiz Cheat Sheet