ELEMENTAL WAY
Nature Based Traditions & The Path of Spiritual Recovery
RESOURCES
GATHERINGS, FESTIVALS, THEATER, & RITUAL
A Few of the Public Celebrations of the Four Seasons:
Spring
MAYDAY; HEART OF THE BEAST PUPPET THEATER
Each year, on the Sunday that falls closest to May 1st, the Heart of the Beast Puppet & Mask Theater puts on a huge festival which includes an amazing parade...a ceremony, and live music and celebration in the Powderhorn Park neighborhood of Minneapolis Follow the link for more info on this civic treasure, as well as other production they create in their theater throughout the rest of the year! LINK: MAYDAY!
Summer
SUMMER SOLSTICE GATHERING
A small annual gathering to celebrate the longest day of the year. A four direction ritual is created to honor the blessings and gifts of the season. The location is TBD each year. Altars are created, ritual is experienced and refreshments are shared.
Fall
HALLOWEEN/SAMHAIN BARE BONES PUPPET EXTRAVAGANZA!
Since 1993, BareBones Productions has presented The Annual Halloween Outdoor Puppet Extravaganza, a community-created spectacle pageant of larger-than-life puppetry, drama, stilting, dance, fire, song, and music that honors the circle of life by celebrating its seasonal arc of death in the Fall.
The pageant always includes a section where members of the audience are invited, through a public naming ceremony, to honor friends and relations who have passed on. Everyone is also offered a chance afterward to honor the dead privately with the help of artistic installations such as labyrinths and “hungry ghost” altars set up on the pageant site. LINK: SAMHAIN!
Winter
WINTER SOLSTICE RITUAL
There is an annual Winter Solstice celebration at the First Universalist Church on 34th & Dupont in Minneapolis. The ritual celebration includes chants, a story for all ages, time spent in the darkness, music and celebrating the returning of, and sharing of, the light. Following the Solstice ritual, join the merriment in the social hall with spiral dancing and light refreshments. LINK: WINTER SOLSTICE!
SYSTEMS & RITUALS
Would you like your cards read...
or would you like to read them?
The Tarot deck is an ancient system that includes the four elements and the path to individuation.
There are also ongoing four direction circles that welcome those who are new to ritual interested in discovering more.
Check the Rituals & Tarot page for more information on readings & workshops.
BIBLIOGRAPHY, VIDEOGRAPHY & WEBSITES
ECOSPIRIT Religions and Philosophies for the Earth
by Laurel Kearns (Editor), Catherine Keller (Editor)
With a fresh, transdisciplinary approach, Ecospirit probes the possibility of a green shift radical enough to permeate the ancient roots of our sensibility and the social sources of our practice. From new language for imagining the earth as a living ground to current constructions of nature in theology, science, and philosophy; from environmentalism’s questioning of postmodern thought to a garden of green doctrines, rituals, and liturgies for contemporary religion, these original essays explore and expand our sense of how to proceed in the face of an ecological crisis that demands new thinking and acting. In the midst of planetary crisis, they activate
imagination, humor, ritual, and hope.
Jung and Tarot: An Archetypal Journey
by Sallie Nicols
Highly innovative work presenting a piercing interpretation of the tarot in terms of Jungian psychology. Through analogy with the humanities, mythology and the graphic arts, the significance of the cards is related to personal growth and individuation. The major arcana becomes a map of life, and the hero's journey becomes something that each individual can relate to the symbolism of the cards and therefore to the personal life.
The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell
This extraordinary book reveals how the themes and symbols of ancient narratives continue to bring meaning to birth, death, love, and war. From stories of the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece and Rome to traditions of Buddhism, Hinduism and Christianity, a broad array of themes are considered that together identify the universality of human experience across time and culture.
The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths & Secrets
by Barbara G. Walker
Twenty-five years in preparation, this unique, comprehensive source book focuses on mythology anthropology, religion, and sexuality to uncover precisely what other encyclopedias leave out or misrepresent. A browser's delight and an indispensable resource, it offers 1,350 entries on magic, the mystical meanings of sun, moon, earth, sea, time, and space; ideas of the soul, reincarnation, creation; ancient and modern attitudes toward sex, prostitution, romance, rape, warfare, death and sin, and more.
Tracing these concepts to their pre-patriarchal origins, Barbara G. Walker explores a "thousand hidden pockets of history and custom in addition to the valuable material recovered by archaeologists, orientalists, and other scholars."
The Spell of the Sensuous
by David Abram
Animal tracks, word magic, the speech of stones, the power of letters, and the taste of the wind all figure prominently in this intellectual tour de force that returns us to our senses and to the sensuous terrain that sustains us. This major work of ecological philosophy startles the senses out of habitual ways of perception.
For a thousand generations, human beings viewed themselves as part of the wider community of nature, and they carried on active relationships not only with other people with other animals, plants, and natural objects (including mountains, rivers, winds, and weather patters) that we have only lately come to think of as "inanimate." How, then, did humans come to sever their ancient reciprocity with the natural world? What will it take for us to recover a sustaining relation with the breathing earth?
CHARACTER IN CHRYSALIS
DEEPAK CHOPRAH
ON THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE BODY...
AND SPIRIT
Think of your body as a process - as a verb, not a noun.
Learn how to move in the direction of good health and
resurrect your soul. change your perception of your
physical body, as well as your character & spirit.
Deepak Chopra, MD is a global leader and pioneer in the
field of mind-body medicine, Chopra transforms the way
the world views physical, mental, emotional, spiritual,
and social wellness.
BUDDHISM & TRANSFORMATION OF
CHARACTER
It is perhaps symptomatic of the "fallen" nature of the ordinary human condition that few of us pass the full extent of our lives comfortably reconciled to our natural selves. Even in the midst of prosperity and success, grinding notes of discontent trouble our days and disturbing dreams come to haunt our sleep. As long as our eyes remain coated with dust we incline to locate the cause of our discontent outside ourselves — in spouse, neighbor or job, in implacable fate or fluky chance. But when the dust drops off and our eyes open, we soon find that the real cause lies within.When we discover how deeply the cause of our unhappiness is lodged in the mind, the realization dawns that cosmetic changes will not be anywhere near enough, that a fundamental internal transformation is required. This desire for a transformed personality, for the emergence of a new man from the ashes of the old, is one of the perennial lures of the human heart.... MORE
PEMA CHODRON
"Going to the Places that Scare You"
Click on the Title to Link to Video
We always have a choice, Pema Chödrön teaches:
We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us
and make us increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can
let them soften us and make us kinder. In this talk, Pema
provides the tools to deal with the problems and difficulties
that life throws our way. This wisdom is always available
to us, Pema teaches, but we usually block it with habitual
patterns rooted in fear. Beyond that fear lies a state of openheartedness and tenderness. This talk is a guide on
how to awaken our basic goodness and connect with
others,to accept ourselves and others complete with faults
and imperfections, and to stay in the present moment by seeing through the strategies of ego that cause us to resist life as it is.
BRENE BROWN
"Anatomy of Trust"
Click on the title to link to Brene Brown's website.
Her talk on trust is an amazing testament!
DAILY OM
Check into the offerings on this site that offers delivery of Daily Inspiration meditations and a variety of inspirational online courses. You can also sign on via social media such as Facebook by following the page.
DAILY OM
PANTHEISM
There are some great links and insights which help to inform an introduction to this spiritual sensibility. Following pages on social media offers great daily inspiration and quotes, and those pages are connected to the following resource websites:
PANTHEISM.COM(MUNITY)
WORLD PANTHEISM
