Design Imperfection @designimperfection - Tumblr Blog

Tenebrae altar, 4.18.19

Lent has been kicking my ass. It felt good to create sacred space and invite Spirit into my experience tonight.

Cash me at the New Story Festival in Austin this weekend!

Saturday 4:00-5:30 I’ll be leading a creative worship space with Rick Diamond and the JIFC design team in the Play section, hosted in the King-Seabrook Chapel at Chalmers & East 7th. Tickets available at https://www.newstoryfestival.com.

Join us for a new annual gathering for community, creativity, and the common good, launching in Austin, Texas, on March 29-31, 2019!

rosequartzandrosaries

Christian/Catholic witches

Some lowkey witchcraft ideas:

Charging saint pendants with good luck/ protection/ whatever that saint is patron of.

Charging Cross necklaces with protection/ health/ happiness.

Sigils invoking saints/ the Blessed Trinity.

Sigils on Saint cards.

Your favorite Bible verse as a sigil.

Feel free to add more!!

designimperfection

Utilize whatever prayer posture coincides with your intentions to bless water (holy water; for me, often cupped hands)

Invite Spirit into your experience prior to any other guiding saints/spirits by envisioning a yellow/white/purple circle of divine light that starts in your solar plexus chakra (or wherever feels right)

Create mind maps in your personal sacred book (book of shadows, grimoire, journal) around significant scriptures or passages that connect with you

Explore ancient blessings and cultivate appreciation/understanding surrounding non-scriptural sacred texts. One of my favorites is researching Hebrew blessings and re-writing/praying them in a way that applies to my situation. (Be mindful of appropriation)

Christian canon includes a rich tradition of anointing with oils, perfumes, spices, etc.; use oil (olive or carrier with EO) to anoint self, others, and anything else that feels right. (We all know to ask others before we attempt to put oil on them, y?)

Immerse yourself in liturgical seasons by wearing related colors, choosing a mindfulness practice (fasting doesn’t have to mean not eating), and noticing any animals/plants/natural elements that present themselves to you as signs.

Create a mindfulness practice around something you’ve told yourself you’re not good at - for me, baking & gardening - and invite Spirit to open up parts of yourself that have been closed/dormant/frozen.

Deconstruct and reframe challenging passages of scripture. Ie “rain on the just and unjust alike” = Spirit is on everyone’s side, not just working for me and my desires

Study ancient languages, even one word at a time. Ie kairos and chronos are both translated as “time” in English, but are distinct in Koine Greek; bringing fresh understanding helps us connect with our spiritual tradition in a new way. I often meditate on new words by writing the word in Greek (or whatever language you’re translating from) and English while enjoying the design and talking with Spirit about what’s coming up for me.

Whenever we can’t find things, I tell my daughter that the first step is to clean - it has a habit of revealing the things we need.

While cleaning out my closet tonight, I found a waterlogged mind map that ultimately took the form of a communal blessing. I found myself drawn to specific, significant elders in my life while writing - Nathalie, Woodie, Carolyn; too many to name. People I love, who have loved and helped me through circumstances that they’ve already navigated and processed from a place of vulnerability.

Grateful tonight for the reminder that there are always opportunities to grow, change, consider, learn.

A Blessing for the Wisdom of Elders:

Blessed be our elders Whose wisdom stands on a lifetime of experiences That began long before we were born, And will ripple through the years to inform our shared story—

Those mentors who guide us past plateaus that seem like dead ends, And illuminate paths that venture past blithe indifference.

May we honor their discernment and value their insights As they invest in generations with so much to learn

(Patiently redirecting the volatile passion of youth While remaining utterly convinced of humanity’s infinite potential).

May our hearts be open to these courageous messengers Who invite us into adventure, and maturity, and strength;

And may our teachers’ trust be well-founded As they release us into the gray, uncertain spaces where growth abides.

Blessed are the souls whose experience has fermented into wisdom, For they have seen the face of God.

Reading The Gift: Poems by Hafiz the Great Sufi Master, translated by Daniel Ladinsky.

A responsive reading based on Matthew 5, written for the Safe & Sound worship series at Journey Imperfect Faith Community, 2.10.19.

All: I affirm that my surroundings have at times made me feel unsafe and uncertain.

Leader: May we create safe spaces by cultivating safe practices in our relationships with ourselves and with others.

All: I affirm that my “yes” and “no” have not always been respected, and it has hindered my ability to trust and be vulnerable.

Leader: May we be more trustworthy than those who’ve hurt us, and more willing to meet pain with care than our abusers.

All: I affirm that my reactions are not always about the person or situation I’m addressing, and when my needs are unmet, I’m more likely to treat others carelessly.

Leader: May we honor our needs for self-care and emotional regulation, in order to love others without attachment to our expectations of what they should be.

All: I affirm that this process is not easy. At times, it is tempting to disengage rather than bring mindfulness to my unhealthy patterns.

Leader: May we honor the hard work each of us is doing. May we become vessels of safety through our actions and reactions. May we value the safety of ourselves and our community by investing in those around us.

All: I offer gratitude to those who are patient with me through my process, and ask for grace and care to be reflected in my treatment of others through their process.

All: Yes.

#emergentchurch #journeyimperfectfaithcommunity #jifc #atx #prayer #prose #reading #postmodern church

A meditation on anxiety & release

(Originally written and facilitated for Journey Imperfect Faith Community in Austin, TX, 2.3.19)

Close your eyes.

Take a breath. And another.

Allow the air to cascade into your lungs as they inflate.

Notice the movement of your stomach, chest, and shoulders as you breathe. Allow your body to soften and make room for the air, oxygenating your blood, nourishing your body as your lungs expand, then expelling the stale air to make room for more of what you need.

As the oxygen flows through your body, notice where you’re holding tension. Scalp. Temples. Forehead.

Neck, back, hips.

Our bodies hold each event we’ve experienced. Storing the memories in muscles and fascia and patterns of movement and behavior. Shoulders holding the first day of school, and job interview, and test result. Fingers tensing and fidgeting around the task that needs to get done today, or yesterday, or 20 years ago. Jaw clenched in resistance to the past, or present, or future.

Breathe. And acknowledge the tension. Thank it for its service; it once kept you safe, or alert, or on guard. It allowed you to survive your experiences.

But at this moment, you are safe already. You are held in this space and its energy. Your protective layers do not serve you in this place of healing.

Breathe. And release. Let the tension slide out of your body and into the earth beneath you. The earth is ancient and sacred, and it welcomes your energy.

Breathing out, releasing air and tension. Making room. Breathing in, accepting fresh air to fill up the space you’ve created.

Continue breathing.

When you feel ready, sit up a bit. Stretch those muscles you’ve been oxygenating and releasing. Notice how the blood flows differently now; where your body wants to move. What parts of you are waking up in this new, safe reality?

Take one more deep, nourishing breath, and reorient yourself to the present.

May safety and security pursue you on your path of healing.

#journeyimperfectfaithcommunity #jifc #atx #emergentchurch #meditation #biofeedback #fascia #mindbodyconnection #mindfulness #deconstruction

journeyifc

Invited. Called. Time to Get Wet.

We’ve been listening. We have. What are the voices that we hear in our inner self? We’ve begun to filter out the voices that accuse us. We’ve listened more deeply to the voices that invite us and call us forward. We’ve stood on the banks for a few weeks now, trying to discern, trying to differentiate those voices.

We’ve begun to realize which gifts we are using and which are lying neglected. We’ve opened ourselves to the risky thoughts of who we might be if all our gifts were in play. We’ve even dared to look at the gaps in our lives, the empty places waiting to be filled.

We might have an inkling now of our calling. We might not know what it looks like, but we have a sense of its characteristics, what it needs to be.

We are ready to enter the Living Stream.

We thought our calling would be a boat on which we sailed safely downstream. Fishers of men retain all the power, right? Safely in our little boats.

We tried it that way. The boat was scary. Not much fishing going on. That stream moves fast. We were carried away. There were rocks everywhere. Hopes dashed, out of control. Something is wrong here.

And now, dripping wet and back on the banks, we are thinking there must be another way. A way that seems riskier and leads us deeper, but is somehow more right. More peaceful. More life-giving.

And then it dawns on us. We are being invited to step into the Living Stream. Just wade in and stand there, listening to the water burbling around us, feeling its rush, watching the reflections, seeing the leaves that drift by, and paying especial attention to the leaves that gather against our thighs. And most of all, being nourished by the cool, clear water.

Riskier, yes. But deeper and more right. More peaceful. More life-giving.

This is where we begin our calling. By placing ourselves in the Living Stream and allowing it to come to us, filling us, enticing us, carrying us within it.

This week, step into the Living Stream.

Directions for becoming a multidimensional being:

Conceive of your own future. Determine what will happen in the next minute, hour, day, week, year, lifetime.

Wrap your mind around every holiday, birthday party, graduation, anniversary, funeral, date, test, fight, flight, turn, blinker, blink, breath. Repeat for every moment in any future that might potentially lie ahead of you.

Breathe.

Know that every moment you just anticipated will never happen. There will be a bump; a breeze; a breakup; a breakdown. Someone will surprise you on Christmas with a massive check, or total your car on the way into work one Monday morning.

Reconsider and rework your calculations for every possibility in the universe. Galaxy. World. Country. City. Workplace. Home. Hand of poker; roll of the dice. 2am phone call and flashing red traffic light.

At the same time, remain awake to and accepting of your present experience. This is you, in this moment – the product of infinite possibilities coming together just so, to create the you who is breathing this air that just inflated your lungs.

Breathe.

At the same time, conceive of the person next to you. Consider the possibilities that birthed them into this crazy world and placed them here, now, to influence your experience as it is being influenced here and now, and earlier this morning when you sensed them sit down, and later this afternoon when you’ll remember some nothing they said in passing and wonder at its marvelous complexity.

Conceive of the neurons firing off infinite probabilities at a comparable rate in both of your brains, considering every breath and cough and weird look and contagious laugh that has, and will, and may influence those patterns.

Know this human. Feel the weight of each of their convictions and questions and irrational fears and butterfly-stomach-stares and understand why they believe with every fiber of their being that they are right. This is love.

Breathe.

Repeat for each being in each world that has ever existed, and that ever will. It will go so wrong. It will go so right.

At the same time, know that none of these futures will ever exist. There is an almost imperceptible thread that weaves together each fraying infinity into a tapestry of life.

This is God.

#Lent #group meditation #meditation #journey imperfect faith community #jifc #postmodern church #atx #atxart

breanna-lynn

The mark of a spiritual man or woman is a listening heart, not a lecturing tongue.

Gary Thomas (via yesdarlingido)

thegoodinatx

Downtown, Austin, Texas. Fujifilm X-Pro2.

WIPs from my developing series, "Racist Me," being presented at the Dunamis Black History Month art show & open mic tonight, Feb 24. Please join us at Journey Imperfect Faith Community in ATX from 6:30-7:45 for art, spoken word, and healing discussion.

#jifc #atx #journey imperfect faith community #postmodern church #black history month

lagonegirl

“This particular project is about my father, but it’s also about so many other people’s fathers. There are so many people who were involved in the Panthers,” she says. “So many people have a file like this on them, many of whom are still in prison, or many of whom might not have a child who happens to be an artist and can use their family as a way to talk about the greater black community and American history.”

source

That whole exhibit is fucking amazing. It should be seen by everyone.

#BlackArt #BlackPanther

designimperfection

Dunamis.