We held our second Artist's Way Book Study this week and I am in the midst of another artistic awakening.
I've seen this happen during the two Artist's Way workshops I facilitated. Participants get very stimulated and feel so alive and connected with their inner artist in the first few weeks. It's really extraordinary!
The Artist’s Way Book Study meets In The Spiritual Space on Tuesdays and Saturdays from noon to 1pm.
Join Flowering Lotus Meditation Group in the Spiritual Space at The New Orleans Healing Center on Wednesday evenings! See their website for more details on the modality and benefits of this meditation technique.
Contact Dolores evolved812@aol.com
By Saumya Arya Haas, Headwaters/Delta Director
Why do we fear the dead? Why is the idea of departed ones a source of horror? Vodou empowered me to confront and overcome my own fear, to build a healthy relationship with the dead.
By Saumya Arya Haas, Headwaters/Delta Director:
I've been Kali -- blindly enraged by violence against women. But men are not the enemy. They are just as vulnerable, nuanced and wise as women. They suffer just as much. I did not want to see this. Recently, I've had to admit that it's something that I need to see. That we all do.
INNER COMPASS Zendo
“When you find your place where you are, practice occurs.”
Zen Master Dogen (13th Century)
Zen Meditation at the New Orleans Healing Center
Zen meditation or zazen is a practice of settling the mind by fully experiencing the body in this moment. The practice is to acknowledge thinking when it happens and to gently bring the mind back over and over again to the breath, to the posture and to what is happening inside and outside of us in the present. Continued zen practice can bring us openness, clarity, increased energy, a greater sense of connection to the world around us and the quiet confidence that we can meet with dignity most of what life hands us.
People of all faiths and backgrounds are welcome to experience this openness with us on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 7:30 to 8:30 am in the Interfaith Center on the 4th floor of the New Orleans Healing Center at 2372 St. Claude Ave. If you do not arrive by the beginning of the first sitting period, please wait to join us at 7:55 am when we will begin 5 minutes of walking meditation. The first day of sitting meditation will be Tuesday, October 25th. Instruction for Beginners will be provided every Tuesday morning at 7:10 am. Also, every Tuesday we will do a brief reading from a book on zen. The Suggested Donation is $5. While we are just starting out, please bring your own meditation cushion or pillow. If you prefer to sit in a chair, there are good chairs for meditation provided.
Facilitators, Casey Groves and Rachel Whitman, have been practicing with their teacher, Fr. Robert Kennedy Roshi, at Morning Star Zendo in New Jersey for the past 11 years. Casey is a New Orleans native who has an M.A. in Spirituality and has been practicing zen since 1993. Rachel has a deep connection to Japanese culture that emerged as a result of having traveled there many times as part of cultural exchange programs.
contact innercompasszen@gmail.com for more info
A few years ago I began to take my food choices seriously. Essentially, I realized my own culpability in supporting a system of cheap food production in the United States that I learned was deeply unethical, in terms of animal suffering, labor rights, the environment, and health. My sense is that many are coming to similar conclusions, which has spawned a variety of food movements across the United States and globally. Like others, my main project was meat, though I never saw the consumption of animals as inherently unethical. Not being able to afford what I considered “good meat” as a college student, I decided to stop eating it altogether.
During this period of struggle over what it meant to me to be a moral being in the contemporary United States, I converted to Islam. I had been studying Islam academically for some time, and felt drawn to what I perceived as a holistic worldview and strict, but accessible, self-discipline. Both my food choices and religious choices were connected; I was trying to live the best way possible, attempting to do the least amount of harm, and seeking guidance to make sense of what all of it meant. I’ve written more about this process in another blog post. A friend introduced me to someone he knew who also talked a lot about food ethics; Nuri and I started Beyond Halal (and got married, but that’s a different story).
Beyond Halal is a web-based project with several purposes. First, it’s where we explore the Islamic legal and ethical traditions as they relate to how humans should interact with animals. It’s a place where we can highlight our successes and failures in this area, and ultimately raise awareness within the Muslim community that our food choices matter. Like other food movements we argue that these choices impact the welfare of animals, the environment, the rights of workers, and certainly our health. What Islam, and perhaps religion in general, uniquely offers to the conversation about food ethics is a spiritual tradition that insists that food also has a subtle effect on the soul. We believe that eating meat that is ritually impure has a negative effect on our spiritual state. Additionally, Muslims strive to do the most amount of good and cause the least amount of harm in this life. In the area of food production, it is easy to forget or ignore this last part simply because we do not see where our food comes from.
Halal is the Arabic term used to designate something as permissible. When used in the context of food, it typically refers to meat that has been slaughtered a particular way, and that contains neither pork nor alcohol. Similar to kosher slaughter, halal slaughter requires that the animal’s throat is swiftly cut while the name of God is invoked. While this is the bare-bones legal definition, there are a number of other recommendations that are drawn from the stories of the Prophet Muhammad and his companions that typify our ethics in relation to animals. From numerous “hadiths” we learn that an animal should not be dragged to slaughter, but walked. They should be given water. They should not see other animals slaughtered. They should never see the knife, which should be razor sharp. The animal should be put at ease. Death must be quick and as painless as possible. In Islam, animals are an important part of God’s creation, and we know from the Qur’an that animals have their own communities and languages, and that each is engaged in constant praise of God. From other hadiths we learn that animals should be treated kindly and with respect; cruelty towards a cat is what literally sends one woman to hell.
I’ve started eating meat again over the past year, which has been in many ways and on many levels a process of discovery. We’ve identified a number of farms and businesses in the United States, Canada, and the UK that raise and slaughter their meat in accordance not only with the legal principles of Islam, but with deep respect for its ethical principles. Slowly, these Muslim (and Jewish) companies and organizations are showing us that religion, quite literally, has something to bring to the table.
Krystina Friedlander is an author and co-founder of Beyond Halal, a project on Islamic law, ethics, and the treatment of animals. She holds an M.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Tulane University, where she performed research on Islamic authority and new media. She lives in Cambridge, MA.
