Bringing beauty to our living
“Do androids dream of electric sheep?” So asks Philip K. Dick. What are dreams, anyways? Gretta considers many different theories of dreaming from Plato on down to the discovery of REM states. If we are denied our REM sleep, we become anxious, irritable and (eventually) psychotic. We need REM sleep to feel renewed. In the same way for our life at large, to achieve a sense of renewal, we need an infusion of beauty. How do we create an infusion of beauty into our everyday life? We have to start thinking about what we are doing, how we are interacting with people. We have to bring a dreamlike quality to our lives.
Forbidden Knowledge
The meditation takes its start from a reading of Genesis 3, the story of eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Gretta offers three composite accounts of people she has encountered during her ministry whose lives have been changed by a book. Most of us have had a deep encounter of a transformative experience – the sudden apprehension of a new understanding. There is a point of pain that lingers between our new knowledge (in our heads) and learning to own that new knowledge and to live it (in our hearts). Gretta notes that we at West Hill have been undergoing the same process as a community. Knowledge can be a difficult thing, and it imposes upon us a responsibility.
Thanksgiving Sunday - Oct. 07, 2007
Gretta opens with a survey of early celebrations of thanksgiving, then moves to a ritual through foods of different colours.
Red (cranberry) – recognizing that we must hear the whole story. Brown (wild rice) – acknowledges mourning and unacknowledged grief. Yellow – gold reminds us of greed. How can we reconcile ourselves to our bounty when measured against the lack of others? How do we turn our hearts to generosity? Green – represents our attachment to our own viewpoint.