The Sojourners piece is an incredible essay. Well worth the relatively low fee to get over the paywall. I never want to dismiss the importance of people’s personal relationship with faith. But you’ve articulated something that’s been bothering me for years: no matter how individual or personal or harmless that relationship is, it often still supports or at least participates in institutions that have caused, and continue to cause, tremendous harm. (The Reveal/ICT two-part podcast about boarding schools highlighted the fact that the Catholic church was given tribal land *and* tribal funds to run those hellholes. And that it still owns about 10,000 acres of that land. I don’t think that reality can be divorced from one’s faith.)
Thank you, Nia. It might have been Christi Belcourt who said – in fact I'm sure it was her, which is part of the reason I love her work so much – after the pope was in Canada that if the Catholics really want to reconcile with Indigenous people, they should fund immersive language schools for Indigenous people across North America for the next 100 years. I'm all in on that.
About winter. I remember this from Where White Men Fear to Tread, by Russell Means; how alienated we are from the weather; we are warm in winter and cool in the summer, our windows are closed to the world. And we take that for granted, as normal. I like living in a place where the seasons are distinct. I like winter and snow, though a long winter can be grueling, like the spring may never return. A lot of people die in winter, and always have, but collectively we've survived it, and much colder ones.
I read Harjo's poem many times. I think you've shared it before, but I read it several times today, silently and aloud. She made magic.
Joy Harjo might be my favorite writer now. Not just her poetry but her nonfiction, her influence by example, everything. Her work and the story of her life has been the sharp edge that has bled me of many notions of literary greatness and the places they spring from. This is an ongoing and evolving relationship and I am so grateful for having had a chance to meet her. I hope I get to again.
She came to Missoula a few years ago when I was still at the bookstore. Her back had gone out but she delivered anyway. When the reading was over – one plagued by horrible technical difficulties initiated when people are too clever to use a real microphone and fuck around with garbage bluetooth or wireless or whatever technology instead – we wanted her to sign a few books for the store. But she couldn't stand, so she sat in a chair and I kneeled before her, like a lowly knight before a queen, and held each book up to her so she could sign it. I wish there was a picture of this somewhere. There might be, who knows.
“It’s kinda like how people used to say you shouldn’t talk about politics and religion in public and now that’s all we ever do and now this country is a stressed-out hellscape as a result.” My stomach clenched just reading the first half of that sentence, and then I belly laughed out it on the second half. Also I am so with you on running rules by ancient jargon. My brain just shuts off. Language needs body and soul. The motions and seconds and bla bla bla. WOOF. The metaphor escapes me but...that ain’t body and soul. (I guess the metaphor is that it stinks of death.)
That artwork and your essay are such a beautiful connection. I read recently a quote from Simone Weil (I think) that said "society is the cave. Solitude is the way out." And while I know we can't all function as hermits, nor should we, I'm beginning to believe that a spiritual life is one that requires solitude, a relationship with surroundings, a reverence for self and others--and can never happen coming down from an imposed institutional hierarchy. I love winter too and am always taken aback at people who talk of it as a kind of nothing, something to endure. Up here, and I'm sure in Montana, access is so much easier in the winter when the tundra is frozen. Food can be stored outside and refrigerators aren't even needed, really. Darkness brings people together and we are all more social in the winter. I love that certain stories can be told when other animals are hibernating--how beautiful. Thanks for sharing such powerful images and ideas to reflect on, as always.
"I'm beginning to believe that a spiritual life is one that requires solitude, a relationship with surroundings, a reverence for self and others--and can never happen coming down from an imposed institutional hierarchy."
Your essay and that painting are so beautiful together. Your writing of this conflict is powerful and helps me to think about my own conflict with the church in which I was raised. I shed Catholicism as much as one can shed a skin -- but I often think I should devise an eighth sacrament for myself -- The Sacrament of Leaving, so that the leaving can take form.
What a lovely idea. I have a close relative who stopped being a practicing Mormon almost as soon as he could choose, but there's this whole extra process to formally exiting that church. Which feels gross to me but also seems to create a way to leave that better reflects the lifelong impact of being raised within a strict religion.
I feel like I just put 4 buck$ on the collection plate, but your essay was worth it.
"These seven teachings of the ancestral grandfathers — humility, bravery, honesty, wisdom, truth, respect, and love — provide all the guidance I need to live an Anishinaabe life. On my best days, I hope “every footstep becomes a prayer” as the life is described by the late Ojibwe elder Edward Benton-Banai. But like so many people who strive to live a spiritual life, I am not always living one of my “best” days. It is only recently that I have even dedicated myself fully to trying to live an Anishinaabe life. Along the way, my feet have grown dusty and dry in making footsteps to this spiritual place. They are ready to linger awhile."
Chris, a guy who can write that doesn't need a "religion".
Hey, since you're in a question answering mood, take a shot at this one.
I would like to know how you feel about the ejection of your now ex-legislator, Mr. Tschida?
As a guy who lives on a country road where every other fenceline had a Tschida sign hanging off it, I am overjoyed. That guy is an ignorant piece of garbage who really pushed my idea that no one is irredeemable.
I loved your Sojourners piece. My mom took me to church out of spite because my dad was a heathen. He was was way more connected to the earth than anyone ever knew and he taught me a lot about respecting the "place" where I live. I took a lot, like prayer and grace, with me when I was able to leave the church on my own and I was really happy to leave the rest. I've been saying for a while that the church is next in line to look in the mirror and deal with its past. Without getting political, there's a candidate that's already attempting to twist it all in his favor for this upcoming cycle. I was raised evangelical in the bible belt and I don't think people are ready to open Christianity's skeleton closet but here we are. Nothing sparks division like religion. I expect ugliness but always hope for grace.
On another note, I'm so looking forward to the Freeflow Stuff! I hope I can be in attendance.
I feel a little guilty about my early-days-of-COVID-nostaligia, but seriously, weren't they the best? One of my favorite parts was when there started to be all these articles, published around September/October 2020, on the concept of hygge/15 ways to drink hot chocolate/let's-all-dress-in-ragged-sweaters-like-that-one-on-Knives-Out. Of the 7,037 lessons that I wish we had taken from that time (but that we did not), one of them would have been how to collectively embrace and enjoy winter as a special, cozy, isolating-but-also-community-making, deeply spiritual time.
All of this is to say, thanks so much for answering that question about storytelling during winter. I love the idea that some stories, you only want to tell while certain spirits sleep.
I never got to experience COVID isolation. I was at the bookstore then, and me and two co-workers were essentially a pod. We became an online business overnight and weren't really equipped for it, so we busted our asses through the whole thing. I never isolated for one minute, there's just stuff I stopped doing that I really haven't returned to and I'm probably better for it, I don't know. I think COVID ruined a couple of my relationships because those people got to know me too well, probably. 😬
That all seems like life on a different planet now though, doesn't it? What a time to be alive.
Yeah, I was thinking about that as I typed it out -- everyone had their own version to deal with. If you had kids it was definitely its own version. If you were a health care worker, ditto. Trying to go from bricks-and-mortar to digital sounds like an absolute nightmare. I'm sorry it took out some of your relationships.
That time does feel like a pressed-and-dried flower fluttering out of the pages of a Victorian novel now.
Poetry Forge is once again so happy to welcome Chris back for a special four-week workshop intensive, taught via Live Zoom during the month of January. Poetry as Spiritual Practice is currently 2/3 full. All the details: https://poetryforge.mykajabi.com/offers/LF72XdXc
How do you feel about the stars and stripes? That's something I struggle with. I'm always surprised at how prominently the flag is displayed at the indigenous events I've attended. I'm not saying it shouldn't be, it's not my place to do that. But it puzzles me. As a relatively recent Welsh emigrant I'm surprised it's displayed at all if I'm being honest. In the Eisteddfodau (celebrations of Welsh language and culture) you won't don't see the Union Jack. There'll be the Welsh dragon, the St. David's Cross, Glyndŵr's Banner. But the "Union" flag will be nowhere to be seen; to the Welsh it symbolizes 1,000 years of Anglo-Saxon efforts to crush the very language and culture being celebrated. (See also: Scotland, Ireland.) To me the parallels seem glaringly obvious.
Some of the research I've done explains the conspicuous abundance of US flags at pow-wows, at least initially, as a way around the 1883 Code of Indian Offenses, dressing the outlawed ceremonies in patriotic garb. Other sources suggest that flying the flag was essentially a way of appeasing the military. Both explanations make sense, but I can't believe that's the case today. The pride with which the flag is flown appears genuine. And I find that very hard to understand.
You are right about the reasons it was initially flown and I am as baffled as you are for its continuing. The first time I walked into the Little Shell cultural center I saw the enormous flag hanging just over the inside door and I wondered what they hell it was doing there and that sentiment has, if anything, grown. I find it to be an outrage.
Winter is hard, but it has its beauties, and it’s a necessary part of life here. It’s the best time to enjoy a fireplace, and lends itself to indoor pursuits. I hope we all make the best of it.
My family and friends started doing gatherings around the fire pit in winter during COVID- some of us even got a down onesie. Three years later, almost, and we love this tradition. We gather around the pit almost weekly now with whomever can show up. Food is shared, stories, songs, wine, star gazing. It is truly amazing.
Look, if I risk YouTube I'm just going to end up falling down a rabbit hole of self loathing because I will be forced to reckon with how much Filson GETS ME.
I am always writing, but my writing triples in winter because it is cozy by the fire and there aren't accessible outdoor sun puddles to distract me from it.
A note on the garden of 10,000 Buddhas, which I'd never heard of before this post. Reading about it, and visiting the page to learn it was set up by Buddhists in the Nyingma lineage, (one of two schools if Buddhism I've practiced with) gives me a LOT of feelings. I'm well aware of how many Tibetan refugees ended up, unsurprisingly, in the mountainous parts of much of Turtle Island, particularly the Colorado area. I have a LOT of feelings about the white dominated nature of many of these communities, the ways in with Orientalism is baked into them, and my own position as a white practitioner in a religion that originated in what we currently know as India, and flourished across Eastern Asia. Oh yeah, and that Buddhism is an Earth Based religion and here I am, an assimilated Métis person reckoning with both whiteness and colonialism, and wondering all the time about the practices of my ancestors. Talk about cultural appropriation and complexity: white dominated Buddhist organizations with a Tibetan Tulku at the head, using the displacement of the Tibetan people to justify land ownership.
The question I always have for white Buddhists is, given the stories of the Buddha challenging the Indian caste system, what are we doing to challenge caste here in so called North America?
Oh, all of this ... so much that I'm just going to say this is something I've been thinking of really, really hard for the last year or so. Oof, what a conversation. But this is what really gets me:
"I have a LOT of feelings about the white dominated nature of many of these communities."
I've been reading a few pages at a time from this book and it is quite eye opening:
(I can also connect the racism of these communities to the abuse of power by said Tulkus and all the interconnected ways white supremacy, patriarchy, and Capitalism come together to protect sexual predation, and financial corruption.)
Anyway...I am a big dharmanerd and secret librarian, so if you are interested in resources and think pieces and reading things by various Buddhists on the subject, ask away!
Added both of these to my books to order list, thank you! I've read Zenju's Sanctuary and The Deepest Place and loved them both (especially Deepest Place). I have The Shamanic Bones of Zen but haven't read it yet. I also see she's got a new one coming next year that looks like something I'm definitely interested in.
The Way of Tenderness remains one of my favourite books of all time...and I read over 100 books a year. If you ever have the opportunity to attend one of Zenju's talks or teachings, I can't recommend it enough. I prioritise them whenever they're online. She's very skillfull at cultivating a genuine intimacy and grounded approach even in an online setting.
I tried a three-part zoom thing with her last winter and posed a question which she misread and got irritated with me, heh. It was about land acknowledgements. I like how she did hers and tried to tell her so but she thought I was criticizing her. We sorted it out via email but I didn't go back for parts two and three. 😬
Nor have I opened the book again since either, now that I think about it. I'm really an awful person.
The pairing of your work with the Christi Belcourt image is just extraordinary
I could hardly believe it.
The Sojourners piece is an incredible essay. Well worth the relatively low fee to get over the paywall. I never want to dismiss the importance of people’s personal relationship with faith. But you’ve articulated something that’s been bothering me for years: no matter how individual or personal or harmless that relationship is, it often still supports or at least participates in institutions that have caused, and continue to cause, tremendous harm. (The Reveal/ICT two-part podcast about boarding schools highlighted the fact that the Catholic church was given tribal land *and* tribal funds to run those hellholes. And that it still owns about 10,000 acres of that land. I don’t think that reality can be divorced from one’s faith.)
Thank you, Nia. It might have been Christi Belcourt who said – in fact I'm sure it was her, which is part of the reason I love her work so much – after the pope was in Canada that if the Catholics really want to reconcile with Indigenous people, they should fund immersive language schools for Indigenous people across North America for the next 100 years. I'm all in on that.
It would be a good start.
About winter. I remember this from Where White Men Fear to Tread, by Russell Means; how alienated we are from the weather; we are warm in winter and cool in the summer, our windows are closed to the world. And we take that for granted, as normal. I like living in a place where the seasons are distinct. I like winter and snow, though a long winter can be grueling, like the spring may never return. A lot of people die in winter, and always have, but collectively we've survived it, and much colder ones.
I read Harjo's poem many times. I think you've shared it before, but I read it several times today, silently and aloud. She made magic.
Joy Harjo might be my favorite writer now. Not just her poetry but her nonfiction, her influence by example, everything. Her work and the story of her life has been the sharp edge that has bled me of many notions of literary greatness and the places they spring from. This is an ongoing and evolving relationship and I am so grateful for having had a chance to meet her. I hope I get to again.
She came to Missoula a few years ago when I was still at the bookstore. Her back had gone out but she delivered anyway. When the reading was over – one plagued by horrible technical difficulties initiated when people are too clever to use a real microphone and fuck around with garbage bluetooth or wireless or whatever technology instead – we wanted her to sign a few books for the store. But she couldn't stand, so she sat in a chair and I kneeled before her, like a lowly knight before a queen, and held each book up to her so she could sign it. I wish there was a picture of this somewhere. There might be, who knows.
I wish there was a photo of you kneeling in your knightly role, too! She truly is a queen.
She is!
I'll have to read her nonfiction! That sounds like a great night.
“It’s kinda like how people used to say you shouldn’t talk about politics and religion in public and now that’s all we ever do and now this country is a stressed-out hellscape as a result.” My stomach clenched just reading the first half of that sentence, and then I belly laughed out it on the second half. Also I am so with you on running rules by ancient jargon. My brain just shuts off. Language needs body and soul. The motions and seconds and bla bla bla. WOOF. The metaphor escapes me but...that ain’t body and soul. (I guess the metaphor is that it stinks of death.)
I hate all of that stuff SO MUCH.
Me too. So dumb
That artwork and your essay are such a beautiful connection. I read recently a quote from Simone Weil (I think) that said "society is the cave. Solitude is the way out." And while I know we can't all function as hermits, nor should we, I'm beginning to believe that a spiritual life is one that requires solitude, a relationship with surroundings, a reverence for self and others--and can never happen coming down from an imposed institutional hierarchy. I love winter too and am always taken aback at people who talk of it as a kind of nothing, something to endure. Up here, and I'm sure in Montana, access is so much easier in the winter when the tundra is frozen. Food can be stored outside and refrigerators aren't even needed, really. Darkness brings people together and we are all more social in the winter. I love that certain stories can be told when other animals are hibernating--how beautiful. Thanks for sharing such powerful images and ideas to reflect on, as always.
Thank you, Freya. This:
"I'm beginning to believe that a spiritual life is one that requires solitude, a relationship with surroundings, a reverence for self and others--and can never happen coming down from an imposed institutional hierarchy."
100%. 🙏🏽
Your essay and that painting are so beautiful together. Your writing of this conflict is powerful and helps me to think about my own conflict with the church in which I was raised. I shed Catholicism as much as one can shed a skin -- but I often think I should devise an eighth sacrament for myself -- The Sacrament of Leaving, so that the leaving can take form.
I love that idea. I was baptized Catholic as an infant. How do I get out of that? I WANT out of it.
What a lovely idea. I have a close relative who stopped being a practicing Mormon almost as soon as he could choose, but there's this whole extra process to formally exiting that church. Which feels gross to me but also seems to create a way to leave that better reflects the lifelong impact of being raised within a strict religion.
I feel like I just put 4 buck$ on the collection plate, but your essay was worth it.
"These seven teachings of the ancestral grandfathers — humility, bravery, honesty, wisdom, truth, respect, and love — provide all the guidance I need to live an Anishinaabe life. On my best days, I hope “every footstep becomes a prayer” as the life is described by the late Ojibwe elder Edward Benton-Banai. But like so many people who strive to live a spiritual life, I am not always living one of my “best” days. It is only recently that I have even dedicated myself fully to trying to live an Anishinaabe life. Along the way, my feet have grown dusty and dry in making footsteps to this spiritual place. They are ready to linger awhile."
Chris, a guy who can write that doesn't need a "religion".
Hey, since you're in a question answering mood, take a shot at this one.
I would like to know how you feel about the ejection of your now ex-legislator, Mr. Tschida?
Thank you, Patrick.
As a guy who lives on a country road where every other fenceline had a Tschida sign hanging off it, I am overjoyed. That guy is an ignorant piece of garbage who really pushed my idea that no one is irredeemable.
Likewise, absolutely gleeful myself!
"Chris, a guy who can write that doesn't need a "religion"." <- Truth right there.
❤️
I loved your Sojourners piece. My mom took me to church out of spite because my dad was a heathen. He was was way more connected to the earth than anyone ever knew and he taught me a lot about respecting the "place" where I live. I took a lot, like prayer and grace, with me when I was able to leave the church on my own and I was really happy to leave the rest. I've been saying for a while that the church is next in line to look in the mirror and deal with its past. Without getting political, there's a candidate that's already attempting to twist it all in his favor for this upcoming cycle. I was raised evangelical in the bible belt and I don't think people are ready to open Christianity's skeleton closet but here we are. Nothing sparks division like religion. I expect ugliness but always hope for grace.
On another note, I'm so looking forward to the Freeflow Stuff! I hope I can be in attendance.
I hope you can too!
I feel a little guilty about my early-days-of-COVID-nostaligia, but seriously, weren't they the best? One of my favorite parts was when there started to be all these articles, published around September/October 2020, on the concept of hygge/15 ways to drink hot chocolate/let's-all-dress-in-ragged-sweaters-like-that-one-on-Knives-Out. Of the 7,037 lessons that I wish we had taken from that time (but that we did not), one of them would have been how to collectively embrace and enjoy winter as a special, cozy, isolating-but-also-community-making, deeply spiritual time.
All of this is to say, thanks so much for answering that question about storytelling during winter. I love the idea that some stories, you only want to tell while certain spirits sleep.
I never got to experience COVID isolation. I was at the bookstore then, and me and two co-workers were essentially a pod. We became an online business overnight and weren't really equipped for it, so we busted our asses through the whole thing. I never isolated for one minute, there's just stuff I stopped doing that I really haven't returned to and I'm probably better for it, I don't know. I think COVID ruined a couple of my relationships because those people got to know me too well, probably. 😬
That all seems like life on a different planet now though, doesn't it? What a time to be alive.
Yeah, I was thinking about that as I typed it out -- everyone had their own version to deal with. If you had kids it was definitely its own version. If you were a health care worker, ditto. Trying to go from bricks-and-mortar to digital sounds like an absolute nightmare. I'm sorry it took out some of your relationships.
That time does feel like a pressed-and-dried flower fluttering out of the pages of a Victorian novel now.
"That time does feel like a pressed-and-dried flower fluttering out of the pages of a Victorian novel" is a great way to put it.
Hi Chris,
REMEMBER, indeed.
I like winter too.
Sincerely,
Melissa
Poetry Forge is once again so happy to welcome Chris back for a special four-week workshop intensive, taught via Live Zoom during the month of January. Poetry as Spiritual Practice is currently 2/3 full. All the details: https://poetryforge.mykajabi.com/offers/LF72XdXc
How do you feel about the stars and stripes? That's something I struggle with. I'm always surprised at how prominently the flag is displayed at the indigenous events I've attended. I'm not saying it shouldn't be, it's not my place to do that. But it puzzles me. As a relatively recent Welsh emigrant I'm surprised it's displayed at all if I'm being honest. In the Eisteddfodau (celebrations of Welsh language and culture) you won't don't see the Union Jack. There'll be the Welsh dragon, the St. David's Cross, Glyndŵr's Banner. But the "Union" flag will be nowhere to be seen; to the Welsh it symbolizes 1,000 years of Anglo-Saxon efforts to crush the very language and culture being celebrated. (See also: Scotland, Ireland.) To me the parallels seem glaringly obvious.
Some of the research I've done explains the conspicuous abundance of US flags at pow-wows, at least initially, as a way around the 1883 Code of Indian Offenses, dressing the outlawed ceremonies in patriotic garb. Other sources suggest that flying the flag was essentially a way of appeasing the military. Both explanations make sense, but I can't believe that's the case today. The pride with which the flag is flown appears genuine. And I find that very hard to understand.
You are right about the reasons it was initially flown and I am as baffled as you are for its continuing. The first time I walked into the Little Shell cultural center I saw the enormous flag hanging just over the inside door and I wondered what they hell it was doing there and that sentiment has, if anything, grown. I find it to be an outrage.
Oh so excited for the Freeflow course!!!
I can't even put into words how jacked I am.
Winter is hard, but it has its beauties, and it’s a necessary part of life here. It’s the best time to enjoy a fireplace, and lends itself to indoor pursuits. I hope we all make the best of it.
I wish I had a fireplace. I might get a fire pit just so I can sit next to it out in the cold, sans mosquitos.
My family and friends started doing gatherings around the fire pit in winter during COVID- some of us even got a down onesie. Three years later, almost, and we love this tradition. We gather around the pit almost weekly now with whomever can show up. Food is shared, stories, songs, wine, star gazing. It is truly amazing.
That's it. I'm getting one.
TBH we made ours, with our two boys. It took a day, easy and inexpensive. We wanted ours to be bigish. Don't know how. YOUTUBE IT!
Look, if I risk YouTube I'm just going to end up falling down a rabbit hole of self loathing because I will be forced to reckon with how much Filson GETS ME.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkYebNgPXXg&t=5s
O M G! NO!
That is so beautiful!
There’s something so calming and meditative about sitting by a fire. I hope you do get a fire pit!
Thanks for the encouragement! I think I will....
Thank you for answering so many questions. Congratulations on your article! And thank you for sharing that gorgeous poem.
Thank you, Karen!
I am always writing, but my writing triples in winter because it is cozy by the fire and there aren't accessible outdoor sun puddles to distract me from it.
A note on the garden of 10,000 Buddhas, which I'd never heard of before this post. Reading about it, and visiting the page to learn it was set up by Buddhists in the Nyingma lineage, (one of two schools if Buddhism I've practiced with) gives me a LOT of feelings. I'm well aware of how many Tibetan refugees ended up, unsurprisingly, in the mountainous parts of much of Turtle Island, particularly the Colorado area. I have a LOT of feelings about the white dominated nature of many of these communities, the ways in with Orientalism is baked into them, and my own position as a white practitioner in a religion that originated in what we currently know as India, and flourished across Eastern Asia. Oh yeah, and that Buddhism is an Earth Based religion and here I am, an assimilated Métis person reckoning with both whiteness and colonialism, and wondering all the time about the practices of my ancestors. Talk about cultural appropriation and complexity: white dominated Buddhist organizations with a Tibetan Tulku at the head, using the displacement of the Tibetan people to justify land ownership.
The question I always have for white Buddhists is, given the stories of the Buddha challenging the Indian caste system, what are we doing to challenge caste here in so called North America?
So many feelings. So much complexity.
Oh, all of this ... so much that I'm just going to say this is something I've been thinking of really, really hard for the last year or so. Oof, what a conversation. But this is what really gets me:
"I have a LOT of feelings about the white dominated nature of many of these communities."
I've been reading a few pages at a time from this book and it is quite eye opening:
https://bookshop.org/p/books/be-the-refuge-raising-the-voices-of-asian-american-buddhists-chenxing-han/14601510?ean=9781623175238
I'm just going to stop. I really need some other perspective on this.
So...anti-racism in white dominated Buddhist communities is my JAM. I have had Chenxing Han's book on my to read shelf since it came out because it's described as a great companion to books like The Way of Tenderness (https://zenju.org/the-way-of-tenderness/) and Radical Dharma (https://www.northatlanticbooks.com/shop/radical-dharma/), both books I will revisit over and over.
(I can also connect the racism of these communities to the abuse of power by said Tulkus and all the interconnected ways white supremacy, patriarchy, and Capitalism come together to protect sexual predation, and financial corruption.)
Anyway...I am a big dharmanerd and secret librarian, so if you are interested in resources and think pieces and reading things by various Buddhists on the subject, ask away!
Added both of these to my books to order list, thank you! I've read Zenju's Sanctuary and The Deepest Place and loved them both (especially Deepest Place). I have The Shamanic Bones of Zen but haven't read it yet. I also see she's got a new one coming next year that looks like something I'm definitely interested in.
The Way of Tenderness remains one of my favourite books of all time...and I read over 100 books a year. If you ever have the opportunity to attend one of Zenju's talks or teachings, I can't recommend it enough. I prioritise them whenever they're online. She's very skillfull at cultivating a genuine intimacy and grounded approach even in an online setting.
I tried a three-part zoom thing with her last winter and posed a question which she misread and got irritated with me, heh. It was about land acknowledgements. I like how she did hers and tried to tell her so but she thought I was criticizing her. We sorted it out via email but I didn't go back for parts two and three. 😬
Nor have I opened the book again since either, now that I think about it. I'm really an awful person.
OMG. I was absolutely on that call and remember that. OOF!