This one is how she describes her own experience of walking the InterSpiritual Way.
Different from interspiritual or multi-faith, Interspirituality is the path of exploring the commonalities and underlying wisdom that can be found at the mystic-heart of many traditions … religious, spiritual, indigenous-ancestral.
Here’s how Mirabai Starr responding to one question in an interview with Tami Simon of Sounds True. You’ll find the link to the full interview just below.
“Brother Wayne Teasdale coined the term Interspirituality, and it refers to the interconnectedness of all the spiritual ways of the world.
The Interspiritual movement is much more about sharing prayer, sharing spiritual practice, sharing those heart-opening and spirit transforming experiences of the Divine that happen when you actually engage with what matters most at the heart of these various traditions.”
Our Lady of Lourdes, Valais. Photo by Armin Kübelbeck, shared via Creative Commons SA, Wikimedia.jpg
“It’s about having a direct experience of other wisdom wells, dipping into those wells and drinking deeply and allowing those waters to change who you are.
“I feel there is an alchemy that happens when we go to the altars of these sacred spaces and bow down to them.
So I’m not talking about a superficial dipping into these traditions. This is not a shopping mall I’m talking about.
This is a radical practice of showing up completely and wholly and practicing deeply. Three or four, we can manage. I think we’re deep and wide enough beings that we have the capacity to love in many ways.”
… it’s not a fluffy feel-good spirituality. I’m not talking about taking what feels nice and take the good and discard the hard parts.
I’m talking about a narrow path, as Jesus put it, where we give our lives to the Divine, to the Sacred, to the Great Mystery, everywhere we can encounter it.”
It seems that the Interspiritual way is one well-understood, and walked, by the mystics of many traditions, now and far back into our ancestral roots. Touching into the sacred heart that beats and pulses between and beneath them.
But not all are called to that path.
Some are called to go deeply into one tradition (and even one particular vein of that tradition), while others explore interrelatedness in some way. Others skitter along the surface, avoiding the depths and their challenges altogether.
If you tend towards the Interspiritual path — have been called to the common spiritual threads that run through several traditions — how does your own experience have you defining or speaking of it?
Jamie is an inspiration partner and lantern-holder for her fellow transformation leaders, change catalysts, and creative nonconformists who are living, inspiring, and (intentionally or not) leading the way in these chaotic times.
Jamie is a long-time servant of the Muse, a writer and author, and an intrepid walker and feline-tender. She has great appreciation for dark chocolate and cooking other nourishing, delicious meals -- often plant-based -- to nourish her partner and her peeps. She's also the director of a women's health clinic in her community, emphasizing in-person, for-real compassionate care. (Aquarius Sun & Saturn, Chiron & Jupiter Pisces, Ur-Plu Virgo conjunction, and HD 6/2 Projector) Be well!
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Reblogged this on Top of JC's Mind and commented:
My friend Jamie shares another post about interspirituality. We met in person at a local interspirituality conference and it is definitely a way of being that draws my heart.
Thank you for sharing this article with your blog-o-sphere circle, Joanne. Yes, the Interspiritual conversation seed that was planted here last April continues to gestate.
I really appreciated Mirbai’s perspective on Interspirituality. I found I resonated more deeply with it, and it more ‘sync’d’ with my own very Interspiritual journey, than the more … cerebral … perspective on it shared last April, though I appreciated that deeply.
I’m contemplating an Interspiritual (and perhaps Mystic-Feminina) conversation salon here, so I’d appreciate hearing your perspective on that as i sense into what’s stirring itself alive. 🙂
Glad you enjoyed this one, Willow Marie, and thanks for sharing the youtube interview that moved you! I’m sure quite a few of us will enjoy it as well. xoxo Love, Jamie
I’ve been interdisciplinary in my approach for most of my journey, though I’ve spent some fairly long periods deeply exploring one tradition or another, such as two years in a Wisdom Circle with a Hopi Elder. I just haven’t found one path that feels like the right one for me and I like to combine elements from different ones.
I do think, at least based on my experience, that a path in which you pick and choose from different places requires more focus to keep from just skimming the surface. When you follow one path, there are usually (definitely not always) teachers for at least some part of the journey who, if they’re good, will lead people deeper or nudge students a bit to go deeper. Still possible to choose to skim, of course (and I’ve met long time practitioners of traditions like Buddhism and Hinduism, who seem never to have gone below the surface), but at least there’s more likely to be an outside force pointing out the potential to go deeper.
I also think some of the ancient traditions have well-developed paths of practice that build and expand the student’s journey in a way it’s hard to replicate if you’re picking and choosing. That said, I feel like I’ve chosen practices from different traditions that have suited me well and kept me moving forward. Occasionally I feel like I’ve shifted enough that I might stop one or two practices and pick up one or two others that feel more right and I also like that I’m able to have that flow by knowing a lot of practices from different places.
Thank you, Leigh. I appreciate what you’ve shared from your own Interspiritual journey.
I can relate … I’m not sure I was seeking teachers from various traditions so much as they arose on my path and I said “Yes” (when “Yes” felt like the right response … there were some that didn’t feel right, so I walked away from those).
There’s a Golden Thread, it seems … love that metaphor. And for those of us who are inclined to the depth and the discipline, to really discerning that Golden Thread, it’d be quite opposite from surface skimming.
As you say … one can flit from thing to thing across multiple traditions, or stay at the surface, albeit for a long time, in one tradition. True enough.
Given the times we’re in … so much transformation of what’s worn out, no longer fitting the needs of the times … it seems that sleuthing for the Golden Threads shared by many traditions is very much a depth-diving recovery mission. 🙂
And the mystics have always understood one another or shared common awarenesses and practices, regardless of tradition. So there’s that.
Be well (and happy Interspiritual, golden-thread recovery sleuthing!).
March 17, 2016 at 12:29 am
Reblogged this on Top of JC's Mind and commented:
My friend Jamie shares another post about interspirituality. We met in person at a local interspirituality conference and it is definitely a way of being that draws my heart.
March 17, 2016 at 3:51 pm
Thank you for sharing this article with your blog-o-sphere circle, Joanne. Yes, the Interspiritual conversation seed that was planted here last April continues to gestate.
I really appreciated Mirbai’s perspective on Interspirituality. I found I resonated more deeply with it, and it more ‘sync’d’ with my own very Interspiritual journey, than the more … cerebral … perspective on it shared last April, though I appreciated that deeply.
I’m contemplating an Interspiritual (and perhaps Mystic-Feminina) conversation salon here, so I’d appreciate hearing your perspective on that as i sense into what’s stirring itself alive. 🙂
xo Jamie
March 17, 2016 at 3:29 am
This gives me hope.
March 17, 2016 at 3:48 pm
Me too, Joanna. 🙂 xo Jamie
March 17, 2016 at 7:30 pm
Love this, thank u! here’s a great interview of her: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHfJ8mvz7VQ
March 18, 2016 at 4:16 pm
Glad you enjoyed this one, Willow Marie, and thanks for sharing the youtube interview that moved you! I’m sure quite a few of us will enjoy it as well. xoxo Love, Jamie
March 21, 2016 at 8:28 pm
I’ve been interdisciplinary in my approach for most of my journey, though I’ve spent some fairly long periods deeply exploring one tradition or another, such as two years in a Wisdom Circle with a Hopi Elder. I just haven’t found one path that feels like the right one for me and I like to combine elements from different ones.
I do think, at least based on my experience, that a path in which you pick and choose from different places requires more focus to keep from just skimming the surface. When you follow one path, there are usually (definitely not always) teachers for at least some part of the journey who, if they’re good, will lead people deeper or nudge students a bit to go deeper. Still possible to choose to skim, of course (and I’ve met long time practitioners of traditions like Buddhism and Hinduism, who seem never to have gone below the surface), but at least there’s more likely to be an outside force pointing out the potential to go deeper.
I also think some of the ancient traditions have well-developed paths of practice that build and expand the student’s journey in a way it’s hard to replicate if you’re picking and choosing. That said, I feel like I’ve chosen practices from different traditions that have suited me well and kept me moving forward. Occasionally I feel like I’ve shifted enough that I might stop one or two practices and pick up one or two others that feel more right and I also like that I’m able to have that flow by knowing a lot of practices from different places.
March 22, 2016 at 5:09 pm
Thank you, Leigh. I appreciate what you’ve shared from your own Interspiritual journey.
I can relate … I’m not sure I was seeking teachers from various traditions so much as they arose on my path and I said “Yes” (when “Yes” felt like the right response … there were some that didn’t feel right, so I walked away from those).
There’s a Golden Thread, it seems … love that metaphor. And for those of us who are inclined to the depth and the discipline, to really discerning that Golden Thread, it’d be quite opposite from surface skimming.
As you say … one can flit from thing to thing across multiple traditions, or stay at the surface, albeit for a long time, in one tradition. True enough.
Given the times we’re in … so much transformation of what’s worn out, no longer fitting the needs of the times … it seems that sleuthing for the Golden Threads shared by many traditions is very much a depth-diving recovery mission. 🙂
And the mystics have always understood one another or shared common awarenesses and practices, regardless of tradition. So there’s that.
Be well (and happy Interspiritual, golden-thread recovery sleuthing!).
xo Love, Jamie