In this workshop, we’ll use several contemplative practices to read, respond to, and reflect on a short chapter from David Haskell’s The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature. We’ll see if reading itself can be approached as a practice similar to mindfulness practice. We may also see if a literary (non-fiction) text might enact some of the kinds of experiences one has when engaged in mindfulness and other types of contemplative practices. We’ll also explore ways of adapting the exercises we’ve experienced and reflected on in the morning to participants’ own disciplines.

A group reading including Tommy Hays, David Hopes, Eric Steineger, and Felice Lopez-Bell. 

Reading and Talk to celebrate publication of Love Nailed to the Doorpost. Jointly sponsored by Congregation Beth Israel and Congregation Beth Ha Tephila.

I will be leading a pre-conference contemplative writing session at this year’s ACMHE Fall Conference, “Radicalizing Contemplative Education: Compassion, Intersectionality, and Justice in Challenging Times.”  You can read more about the conference here: http://www.acmheconference.org/. 

Here’s a short description of the session:

Using the last line of Norman Fischer’s interpretive translations of Psalm 27, “I wait only for you,” we’ll inquire into our experiences of waiting. What/who do we wait for? Where do we wait? What do we experience as we wait? We’ll use contemplative/reflective writing practices to description and explore our experiences of waiting. We may also conclude with a collaborative piece of writing on our experiences of waiting. Bring something to write with and something to write on/in.

I hope to see some of you at the conference!

I hope you can join me at Malaprop's where I'll be reading as part of the Writers at Home reading series on Sunday, Sept. 17, 2017 at 3:00 p.m.

I will be leading a Reshet Webinar on Poetry as Jewish Mindfulness Practice. This webinar is sponsored by the Institute for Jewish Spirituality. jewishspirituality.org

On the Border: A Jewish Writing and Reading Workshop

Borders define and divide us. They can be sites of conflict, and they can be meeting places, where love, compassion, and kindness arise. Think of the threshold of a Jewish home, with its mezuzah affixed aslant there reminding us to love . . . and to compromise, to come together in a mutually agreed upon promise or intention, to make one out of two.

In this workshop, we’ll look at the way poems by mostly Jewish writers consider borders of all kinds: political, religious, cultural, historical, linguistic. The poets whose work we’ll consider include Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai and American-Jewish poet Jacquelyn Osherow, American-Israeli Jewish poet Peter Cole, and Palestinian-Israeli poet Taha Muhammad Ali, whose work has been translated by Cole. Our exploration of the work of others will include a variety of contemplative practices as a way of experiencing the poems deeply. We’ll talk about these poems, and then, based on what we notice in their work, we’ll write our own poems and prose exploring one or another of the borders that we as Jews encounter in our lives.

I will also share a couple of poems and works of lyrical prose from my new book, Love Nailed to the Doorpost, and copies of the book will be available for purchase and signing at the conclusion of the workshop.

The workshop will be interactive, playful, and, I hope, illuminating.

Where Pleasure and Pain Meet: Jewish and Arab Poems of Co-Existence

Unlike territories and borders that divide people, poetry may offer us a place to meet. At the very least, a strong poem in and of itself may be a place where pleasure and pain meet and even co-exist. We'll see if that's the case by looking at sections of Yehuda Amichai's poem "Jerusalem, 1967", Jacquelyn Osherow's poem "Hearing News from the Temple Mount in Salt Lake City," Taha Muhammad Ali's poem "Twigs," and my poem "Enemies of Israel, Enemies of the Jews." You don't need to be a fan of poetry to experience the power of the poems we'll explore together.