|
Photo by K.M.
Walowit "Carol Lee Flinders'
workshop left me with a much deeper compassion for our society and for our
species: men and women, from infants to the elderly. Most remarkable to me
was the level of hope she inspired in us all. Her words and the centuries
of voices she draws from come from a place older than time."
Dorian
Dugger, Director, June bug Center, Floyd, Va
|
Lectures
& Workshops
"Carol Lee Flinders weaves together a
powerful mix of historical and social
analysis with spiritual insight. Carol¹s
reconciliation of feminism and spirituality
and her recent work reframing the gender
crisis in a larger historical context have
been invaluable contributions to Satyana¹s
Gender Reconciliation work."
Will
Keepin, President, Satyana Institute,
Boulder
,
Colorado
Ms.
Flinders offers presentations in seminar
format, one-two hour lectures, full-day Workshops, half-Day workshops,
and weekend workshops
|
|
|
Mother-Lines of the Spirit
Carol Lee Flinders
If Saint Teresa of Avila had been born in the Twentieth
Century – or St. Clare of Assisi, Julian of Norwich, or any of
the women mystics of the Middle Ages – what sort of life
would she be leading? Would we know her if we met her on the
street? What would she care passionately about? And would she
be a nun?
In her most recent book,
Enduring
Lives: Living Portraits of Women
of Faith In Action, Carol Lee Flinders introduced four
contemporary women she sees as spiritual
great-grand-god-daughters of women like Saint Teresa of
Avila, Julian of Norwich, and the other subjects of her
landmark book Enduring Grace: Living Portraits of Seven Women
Mystics.
In this workshop she looks closely at the very meaning and
reality of "spiritual motherlines" – radiant streams of
awareness flowing down through time and out among us.
Suppose these streams were to flow, utterly unimpeded, into our own
lives. How, for example, might our collective desire to help re-birth
this battered world be strengthened?
Join her to discover how we each might align ourselves with vital,
nourishing motherlines of the spirit – drawing gratefully on what
we've already received, repairing and reconstructing where we need to,
and becoming conduits, in turn, for other women and girls.
|
Spirit, Science & Story
Carol & Tim
Flinders
My
soul doth magnify thee, Oh Lord" says the Magnificat.
But how does one magnify God?
Mahatma Gandhi said a man or woman's actions become
"irresistible" when they have "made themselves zero." But how
do they do that?
Suppose we decided a human being could in fact "become zero,"
and thus "magnify" the presence of God in the world, or at
least our perception of it. What sense does that kind of
choice make from the perspective of evolutionary science?
Neuroscience? Psychobiology?
In short, what kind of an organism is a mystic?
A certain kind of story - a Saint Teresa's, a John Muir's -
sheds light on such questions.
Carol and Tim Flinders are longtime, dedicated observers of
"rare birds" like Gandhi and Julian of Norwich, and
have spent decades chronicling the lives of mystics,
"mini-mystics," and spiritual activists.
As enthusiastic students of current
scientific revelations they have arrived at the arresting and
timely question that inspires this workshop: “What kind of an
organism is a mystic?”
In it, they consider the stories of mystics,
"mini-mystics" and spiritual activists, using contemporary
science to help inform our understanding of how and why these
rare, "emergent" phenomena occur.
And they explore ways in which these stories can inform our
own spiritual journeys.
|
|
|
