Julian of Norwich Summer Book Group Zoom Tuesday's 4:30 pm PST

Dear Earthlings,

Please join us tomorrow for our 8 week Summer Book Group on Zoom about Julian of Norwich, the 14th century English mystic extraordinaire! Tuesday's, 4:30 pm PST, (or if you are on the east coast, 7:30 pm EST) June 8th through July 27th.

An Explorers Guide to Julian of Norwich by Veronica Mary Rolf

Please read the first chapter 'Why Julian Now?' if you are able, but come for conversation and share a cup of tea with us even if you don't have the book yet or haven't completed the reading. Julian's book, Revelations of Divine Love, was written 600 years ago and is not that accessible unless we have some commentary like the kind Rolf's book provides. I can think of four answers to the question, 'Why Julian Now?' and they include; 1. Julian invites us to celebrate the Motherhood of God and I need and want more of the divine feminine, the Motherhood of God, whatever you want to call it. Sign me up! Medicine for the body, mind and soul. 2. I am fascinated by near death experiences and other visionary and paranormal experiences and as Julian shares her mystical experiences, she invites us to to honor our own mystical experiences. 3. Many people report after a near death experience they have no fear of death and a deeper sense of meaning and purpose in their lives. Preparing for death is a spiritual practice and Julian is our guide. I want that too! 4. Maybe you are like me and you still need to heal from having been brainwashed that God has wrath or anger. In order to heal the unconscious behaviors we have adopted and learned from our families and culture using punishment and power over models found in many religions, families, schools, societies and between countries etc. reviewing the theology we have been taught is crucial. The root of our violent punishing ideologies are transformed as we reimagine a God of wrath and shapeshift her into a God of love, caring and forgiveness. 5. AND Julian teaches ecologic ways of being and living, "God is nature.......... nature is God." The first woman to write a book in English and a theology book no less sharing her God encounters. Need I say more? I rest my case. We neeeeeeed Julian now for all of these reasons and more, a woman who survived and thrived living in isolation during a pandemic similar to our covid pandemic. May the spirit of Julian inspire and guide us this summer. Invite your friends and family and please call with any questions about our book group.

Sending love,

Bonnie

P.S. I also recommend getting Mirabai Starr's, The Showings of Julian of Norwich, a New Translation Zoom ID 3025719458 Zoom for Book Group click on this red link

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New Years Eve Dancing 2020

Dear Earthlings,

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Please join us for a non alcoholic New Year's' Eve Dance Party on Zoom 5 pm PST, Thursday, December 31, with Dream Sharing, Incubation and Ritual! Contact Bonnie with any questions. Church for Our Common Home, Zoom link 3015719458. Please bring a candle. Not just light but dark, not only day but also night, not up or down but light AND dark, day AND night, up AND down, for God and creative transformation is within you and underground, here on Mother Earth and out in the galaxies.

You will not die and go to heaven, you will be born in this life and wake up and find yourself in heaven.

Dear Earthlings,

Call your Mother (Earth) today with your tax-deductible donations for Church for Our Common Home, dedicated to Mother Earth, the Divine Feminine, and the Arts! We welcome, credit/debit cards/Pay Pal and checks and we need your financial help. We moved in one day before the Covid-19 lock down in late spring. Catapulted here by our vision to create a safe harbor in nature during our planetary crisis, to create a small, loving, organic, sacred place, for our children, grandchildren and families, as well as all the non-human creatures, and we invite YOU to join us! We came in trust, but not with a lot of financial resources. Whatever you are able to donate, we thank you and appreciate every dollar very much. If you are unable to support us financially we understand and ask for your prayers.

Church for Our Common Home is exploring new ways to live, worship, pray, heal, dream, grow our own healthy food, and we are committed to creating loving community in harmony with all the creatures here on our recently purchased five-acre farm. We invite you to join us on Zoom for worship, every Sunday at 5 pm PST or in person as soon as it is safe. We need and want you to join us and we are now set up as a retreat center for short or long stays! A beautiful paradise down a quiet rural road, nested among a magnificent giant fir tree forest and rolling pastures, with a vast clear sky blazing with stars at night, we are serenaded during the day by bird songs and quiet gentle breezes. We offer three weekly programs on Zoom including Sunday worship, Silent Meditation aka Centering Prayer, bible and wisdom teachings study aka Lectio Divina, and Dream Group. This year we offered a class on Hildegard and Walt and I offer counseling, both traditional counseling as well as dream work, spiritual direction and pastoral counseling in person and/or on phone or Zoom.

What do you want to do here, or be here or bring here? When can you come visit? We are able to sleep at least seven people.

We are exploring biodynamic farming, somewhat like regenerative farming, using no chemicals, but also using biodynamic preparations We have made a sacred promise to live in close and loving relationships with all living creatures here, visible and invisible on the John Cobb Farm. We will keep and cultivate our wild wooded areas, invite animal and plant diversity and mix in a large amount of prayer for the soil, plants, creatures of every kind, for our human family and Mother Earth.

Zoom enables us to be a global ministry and we are interacting with people from Canada, China and Columbia to Bulgaria, Boston and Brooklyn. Our local neighbors have been a joy to get to know. One of the families lent us twenty two sheep, a donkey and horse who grazed on our pastures. We were delighted to donate vegetables from our first vegetable harvest as well as over a hundred twenty five pounds of apples from our apple trees to the local Food Share. We plan to make a large sign this spring, “Free Front Yard Food” (thanks to the inspiration of our Treasurer Juan Ibarra) and invite neighbors here for regular pot lucks, concerts, dances, art workshops and neighborhood gatherings.

Currently painting a mural on the barn we have converted the inside of the barn into an art gallery, art work space, dance studio and general party place. Our flower garden is the Mary Magdalene Garden Café where we enjoy outside dining, bonfire and star gazing with sing a longs. Our water pump shed has a broken water pump that we hope to repair, and envision creating a pond for ducks. We day dream about creating a Chapel to Pray for the Earth and hope you’ll come help us build it as a sculptural work of art. We are just outside of Salem, just a little more than an hour south of Portland, only an hour drive to the gorgeous Oregon coast to the west, and Mount Hood stands majestically to our east and in the middle of the fertile farming paradise that is Willamette Valley. Our pink house was built in 1945 and came with two outdoor cats, Molly and Susie Q, wild deer, hummingbirds, goffers, hawks, blue jay, squirrels, butterflies and more. Juno our new puppy joyfully hops and prances around the farm and we look forward to getting goats and chickens in the spring.

When you join us for worship and/or send a tax-deductible donation, we will send you dancing rainbow ribbons that we use for DANCING at the end of Zoom worship. Join us also for our yearly non-alcoholic DANCE Party on January 31st beginning at 5 pm with dream sharing, ritual and dream incubation for 2021.

We are exploring the wisdom of Julian of Norwich this Advent. She lived 650 years ago during the pandemic of the Black Plague and was an anchoress who lived in one room. She had a window where she did spiritual counseling and remained connected to the outside world, much like Zoom has connected us to you and the outside world during our pandemic and social distancing. Our Zoom portal/window invites you to commune with us and the spirit of Julian, a woman who never lost her composure or trust in God’s love during a time of pandemic, poverty, patriarchy and great social injustice. “All will be well.” She assures us, “and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.”
Sending love this holiday season…..Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Bonnie and Walt

Zoom ID 3025719458