The Creation Spirituality Lineage Calling All Social and Environmental Activists, Mystic Explorers, Justice Makers, Cosmic Thinkers, Earth Keepers Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox Watch for Matthew Fox's video meditation -- now appearing every Monday! |
Art and Artists and
Healing Times 09/26/2024 |
PLEASE NOTE: With the days ticking down to 11/5, learn the deeper stakes in this year's election. Get your copy of Trump & the MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election today! Choose your format in the book block below. |
I am thinking of the funeral of my oldest brother Tom taking place today in the land of the aurora and great lights, Iceland, where he and his artist wife Anna, who is from Iceland, retired and have been living for nine
years. |
Yesterday our family mailing list of about 24 persons received a beautiful gift from one of my brother Nat’s step-children, Charlene Kaye, who is a singer and song writer and movie producer. She tells the story behind it here. Hello beloved Fox clan, |
“Shadow to Light – in loving memory of Nat Fox,” sung by Nat’s stepdaughter Charlene KAYE. |
I hope everyone is holding up all right and taking care of themselves. I wanted to share a song I wrote about Nat (and unintentionally, about Tom!). I’m a musician and I’ve always understood the world in this way. It’s music that has accompanied every milestone in my life and has gotten me through my toughest times. This loss is no different. |
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| In Nat’s final months, Mom, Liann and I would go sing to him,
and it was the one thing that lit him up and connected us to each other without the necessity of verbal speech. In a previous email, I had written how when I was 15, my first guitar broke on a flight to summer camp (because I had forgotten to detune the strings, the neck snapped! I’ve never made the same
mistake) and I was devastated. Nat wrote to me and said, “Don’t worry about the guitar, Lene. We’ll buy you a new one. You can turn it into a psychedelic art |
piece. Hang it up on the wall. Look for the silver lining. Smile and pretend you are happy, and soon you will be.” I loved his unfaltering positivity – it’s one of the qualities I miss about him most. In the lyrics of the song, this imagery came to me of an aurora in the sky, as if Nat has joined the cosmos in the form of those psychedelic colors. Only until after it was written did I realize that the aurora, or the northern lights, is what Iceland is so famed for. So when we look up at the sky and see the stars and colors – I like to think it’s Nat, Tom and everyone else we love
who has passed on, shining down on us together and dancing in light. |
One thing I like about sharing this story with DM readers is that a death in a family affects all of us and multiple generations. It is a blessing to hear wisdom from the younger generations and experience how intergenerational wisdom thrives in families amidst whatever differences also take place there. My sister, |
Tom Fox with his wife, artist Anna Jóelsdóttir; her paintings are in the background. Photo courtesy of Matthew Fox. |
in flight to Iceland for the funeral, very much experienced the storied aurora above Iceland. Thank God for artists! As
Otto Rank reminds us, ultimately only the unio mystica heals our deepest wounds and the “mystical union” happens “in love and art.” |
See Matthew Fox, Creativity: Where the Divine and the Human Meet.
And Fox, “Otto Rank on the Artistic Journey as a Spiritual Journey, the Spiritual Journey as an Artistic Journey,” in Fox, Wrestling with the Prophets: Essays on Creation Spirituality and Everyday Life, pp. 199-214.
And Fox, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality.
And Fox, Prayer: A Radical Response to Life.
Banner Image: Bands of the aurora borealis open a celestial portal. Photographed in Iceland by v2osk; on Unsplash |
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Responses are welcomed. To add your comment, or read other comments and enter into dialog, please click HERE
to go to our website and scroll down to the Comments field. |
Queries for Contemplation |
How has art in whatever expression helped to heal you at times of loss and grief in your life? |
Creativity: Where the Divine and Human Meet
Because creativity is the key to both our genius and beauty as a species but also to our capacity for evil, we need to teach creativity and to teach ways of steering this God-like power in
directions that promote love of life (biophilia) and not love of death (necrophilia). Pushing well beyond the bounds of conventional Christian doctrine, Fox’s focus on creativity attempts nothing less than to shape a new ethic.
“Matt Fox is a pilgrim who seeks a path into the church of tomorrow. Countless numbers will be happy to follow his lead.” –Bishop John Shelby Spong, author, Rescuing
the Bible from Fundamentalism, Living in Sin
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Wrestling with the Prophets: Essays on Creation Spirituality and Everyday Life
In one of his foundational works, Fox engages with some of history’s greatest mystics, philosophers, and prophets in
profound and hard-hitting essays on such varied topics as Eco-Spirituality, AIDS, homosexuality, spiritual feminism, environmental revolution, Native American spirituality, Christian mysticism, Art and Spirituality, Art as Meditation, Interfaith or Deep Ecumenism and more.
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Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality
Matthew Fox lays out a whole new direction for Christianity—a direction that is in fact very ancient and very grounded in Jewish thinking (the fact that Jesus was a Jew
is often neglected by Christian theology): the Four Paths of Creation Spirituality, the Vias Positiva, Negativa, Creativa and Transformativa in an extended and deeply developed way.
“Original Blessing makes available to the Christian world and to the human community a radical cure for all dark and derogatory views of the natural world wherever these may have originated.” –Thomas Berry, author,
The Dream of the Earth; The Great Work; co-author, The Universe Story |
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Prayer: A Radical Response to Life
How do prayer and mysticism relate to the struggle for social and ecological justice? Fox defines prayer as a radical response to life that includes our “Yes” to life (mysticism) and our “No” to forces that
combat life (prophecy). How do we define adult prayer? And how—if at all—do prayer and mysticism relate to the struggle for social and ecological justice? One of Matthew Fox’s earliest books, originally published under the title On Becoming a Musical, Mystical Bear: Spirituality American Style, Prayer introduces a mystical/prophetic spirituality and a mature conception of how to pray. Called a “classic” when it first appeared, it lays out the difference between the
creation spirituality tradition and the fall/redemption tradition that has so dominated Western theology since Augustine. A practical and theoretical book, it lays the groundwork for Fox’s later works.
“One of the finest books I have read on contemporary spirituality.” – Rabbi Sholom A. Singer |
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Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had always shied away from using the term “Anti-Christ” because it was so often used to spread control and fear. However, given today’s
rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables in this book employing the archetype for the cause of justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
For immediate access to Trump & The MAGA Movement as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color
prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with
black & white images, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To receive a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for immediate download. |
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In the Beginning There Was Joy: A Cosmic Celebration for Kids of All Ages
The first book in the Father Fox’s Fantastical Fables series tells the story of the big bang and how humans fit into the awesome, fantastical,
cosmic picture! With artwork curated from illustrators around the world, this book expresses the joy and wonder of all peoples and cultures, planting seeds of respect, cooperation and hope to work together for the healing of our planet. "Matthew Fox does it again, here for our young ones, who so need a positive, cosmic vision
to thrive, or even survive, in a sad time." - Father Richard Rohr, Author of The Universal Christ "Matthew Fox offers a resounding affirmation of what our souls have always suspected: we are made for joy." - Mirabai Starr, Author of God of Love and Wild Mercy |
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UPCOMING EVENTS See Matthew Fox's full calendar
HERE |
MONTHLY: Join Matthew Fox, Mariko Middleton, and Skylar Wilson of the Order of the Sacred Earth in a free virtual meeting for connection and networking with other mystic warriors. Last Tuesday of every month, 4:00-5:00pm PT.
Join Zoom Meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88665302478
Meeting ID: 886 6530 2478 Learn more at www.orderofthesacredearth.org |
Join Matthew Fox and others in a panel discussion on “Mysticism, Spirituality and Psychedelics” at the Portland 2024 Psychedelic Symposium: Illuminating Visions, a hybrid virtual/on-site event. Panel discussion (online): Friday, October 4, 10:30 am - 12:00 noon PT; Symposium (on-site): Friday, October 4 - Sunday, October 6. Register HERE. ConvergenceCoLab hosts Matthew Fox, Margaret Wheatley, and Brian McLaren in an online
conversation on “Post-Doom Spirituality," Wednesday, October 16, 6-8:30 PM ET. Register now with an EARLY BIRD rate of $30, HERE. |
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Join Matthew Fox as he discusses his two children's books, In the Beginning There was Joy and The Return of Father Sky, in an Our Lady of the Prairie Retreat, Thursday, October 17, 4:00-5:30 pm
PT.
Register HERE. |
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Creation Spirituality Conversations |
Bannon, former Trump advisor and former Executive Chairman at Breitbart News. He explains how Cardinal Burke and other neofascists in the Catholic Church opposed the Second Vatican Council, which sought to update the Catholic Church. He then explains how both Leonard Leo (co-chairman of the Federalist Society board of directors, who drew up lists of potential conservative judges who were then appointed to the Supreme Court) and Kevin Roberts from the Heritage
Foundation, share a right-wing Catholic ideology. |
Inspired by this post? Share your insights on Universeodon, Instagram or Twitter using the hashtag #RevDrMatthewFox and tag Matt with @RevDrMatthewFox FOLLOW MATTHEW FOX: |
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