Tiferet Talk with Molly Fisk

I'm so excited! This Tuesday I get to talk with Molly Fisk AND Donna Baier Stein. We'll be talking about Molly's essay collection, Blow-Drying a Chicken, as well as her poetry and other work. Here's a great blurb from John Updike: "Molly's voice is crisp and decided yet relaxed and just close enough somehow...and the pieces all are impeccably shaped and written. Fearless, clear-eyed work."

And I can attest that Blow-Drying a Chicken is delightful, and Molly's poetry is brave, skillful and beautiful.

Donna Baier Stein will be joining me as the new co-host of Tiferet Talk!

Details Here: http://tiferetjournal.com/42114-molly-fisk-3/

Caroline Leavitt and Tomorrow

Is This Tomorrow? I can't wait! Tomorrow's the day I get to interview the fabulous Caroline Leavitt about her newest novel, "Is This Tomorrow" and other things literary and soulful. She promises to spill her soul and her secrets. Generous woman! Join us from 7-7:30 EST.

http://tiferetjournal.com/22414-caroline-leavitt-2/

*Note* In case you can't make it live, all Tiferet Talks are archived permanently at iTunes, blogtalk, and the Tiferet website.

The Mnemosyne Monthly: Poem Forty-Four (Evening Chant) and TIferet Talk with Natalie Goldberg

Photo by Kevin Moul

Tomorrow I will have the great fortune of speaking with author, poet, teacher, and painter, Natalie Goldberg about her forthcoming book, The True Secret of Writing for Tiferet Talk. Goldberg is the author of the seminal writing books Writing Down the Bones, Wild Mind, Thunder & Lightning, and Old Friend from Far Away, which, together with her life-changing workshops, have rent open the landscape of creativity and inspired a revolution in the practice of writing in this country. Goldberg’s own gorgeous creative works include the novel Banana Rose; the memoirs Long Quiet Highway and The Great Failure; and the painting and poetry books Living Color, Top of My Lungs, and Chicken & In Love. 

Goldberg’s books have sold millions of copies worldwide, and her extraordinary teaching methods have drawn students from across the globe. The True Secret of Writing, due for release 3/19/13, is the capstone to four decades of Goldberg’s teachings and reveals newly-developed methods not found in Goldberg’s previous books.

Of The True Secret of Writing, Noah Levine states, “Natalie Goldberg has done the unthinkable, she has shared the secret teaching. The buddhas of time immemorial are rejoicing and the literary bodhisattvas are smiling in silent approval. Read this book, then write a revolutionary manifesto!” 

In celebration of this interview, I'd like to do something a little different with Mnemosyne this month and memorize a chant instead of a poem. Mnemosyne started because I was so in love with certain poems that I wanted to bring them into my breath and being. I wanted to feel them in the beats of my heart. I feel the same way about this chant, "Evening chant," which is a traditional opening for mediation sessions and which has many variations. I like Goldberg's version the best of any I've heard, because it is more immediate and visceral than the others.  

Enjoy!                                            

I beg to urge you everyone:

Life and death are a Great Matter
Awaken, awaken, awaken
Time passes quickly
Do not waste this precious life

(Natalie Goldberg's version of the Evening Chant, written on the wooden han)

Tiferet Talk with Julie Maloney

This upcoming Monday, 2/25/13 at 7 PM EST, 6 PM Central, I'll have the pleasure of interviewing writer and writing teacher, Julie Maloney for Tiferet Talk. Maloney’s first poetry collection, Private Landscape, was published in 2007, and in 2003 she founded Women Reading Aloud, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting women writers through special events and workshops. Maloney is a trained workshop leader in the Amherst Writers and Artists Method, an organization whose philosophy is that “every person is a writer, and every writer deserves a safe environment in which to experiment, learn, and develop craft.” Maloney’s teachings focus on what she calls the 3-in-1 principle, which asserts the equal value of the writer, the reader, and the listener. “Listening is one of the greatest gifts we can give to each other,” Maloney says.

Of Maloney’s first collection, Poet and Barnard University Lecturer Charlotte Mandel states, “Julie Maloney's poems in her collection - Private Landscape - move with the exquisite grace of her abilities as a dancer and choreographer. Dream narratives sing in delicate imagery. Pain of cancer is here, honestly revealed and transcended; love is here, in its greatest giving. There is not a trace of easy sentimentality. This is a collection to remember, at once personal and universal.”

As well, Maloney, has been kind enough to share one of her new poems with us below. Enjoy!

PEE

Darkness seeps over the walls,

slides across my mouth and

silences my wail.  Inside the palm

of my hand lays a dead emergency button.

Broken and unplugged, the button drags

me down inside a pool of piss.

Squeeze tight.  Squeeze tight.

Where do I put my pee?

No one to hear me, no where

to drain the neglected vessel.

I fantasize letting it all run down

my legs onto the clean sheets.

Relief sends a shiver up my body. 

“Yes, do it,” a voice says.  “Let it go.”

I stare down the pain of being full.

Focus on the steady contraction

of a bladder bulging into ferocity.

I call on my resolve and wait 

through the night without a clock

to tell me how long I have lived.

The Mnemosyne Monthly: Poem Forty-Three (Shikibu)

Izumi Shikibu

by

Komatsuken

This month's Mnemosyne poem, by Izumi Shikibu, comes from The Ink Dark Moon and is translated by Jane Hirshfield, who I will interview this upcoming summer for Tiferet Talk. If you're not familiar with her work, Izumi Shikibu is a mid Heian period Japanese poet and a member of the Thirty-six Medieval Poetry Immortals--a group of Japanese poets chosen by Fujiwara no Kintō as models of Japanese poetic ability. Because of her numerous affairs and marriages and the passionate nature of her writings, Izumi Shikibu became known as The Floating Lady. Enjoy ...

                                                   In this world

                                                   love has no color

                                                   yet how deeply my body 

                                                   is stained by yours.

                                                   --by Izumi Shikibu

2013 Tiferet Talk Schedule

Hip Hip Hooray! The first Tiferet Talk interview of 2013 is tonight at 7 PM, and I'm excited to also share the schedule for the year: 

                                    Judith Hanson Lasater 1/28, 7 - 7:30 pm EST
                                    Julie Maloney 2/25, 7 - 7:30 pm EST
                                    Natalie Goldberg 3/17 or 3/25/13, 7 - 7:30 pm EST
                                    Jim Hanson 4/29, 7 - 7:30 pm EST
                                    Molly Peacock 5/20, 7 - 7:30 pm EST
                                    Jane Hirshfield 6/17, 7 - 7:30 pm EST
                                    Doug Anderson 7/29, 7 - 7:30 pm EST
                                    Ann Hood 8/19, 7 - 7:30 pm EST
                                    Andrea Polard 9/30, 7 - 7:30 pm EST
                                    Alfred Corn 10/21, 1:-1:30 PM EST
                                    Helene Cardona and John FitzGerald 11/25, 7 - 7:30 pm EST
                                    Kanta Bosniak 12/16/13, 7 - 7:30 pm EST

For more information about the talks or to subscribe to the journal, please go to: http://tiferetjournal.com/

Judith Hanson Lasater on Making Peace with the Present Moment

Judith Hanson Lasater with B. K. S. Iyengar

On  Monday, 1/28/13, from 7-7:30 PM EST, 6-6:30 PM CST, for Tiferet Talk, I will have the honor of speaking with writer, yoga instructor, psychologist, and physical therapist Judith Hanson Lasater about how to live your yoga and other vital topics. Lasater, who has been teaching yoga since 1971 and is the president of the California Yoga Teachers' Association, is a founder of both the Iyengar Yoga Institute in San Francisco and Yoga Journal magazine. As well, Lasater is the author of many books, including What We Say Matters: Practicing Nonviolent Communication (with Ike Lasater, 2009), Living Your Yoga: Finding the Spiritual in Everyday Life (1999), A Year of Living Your Yoga (2006), and Relax and Renew: Restful Yoga for Stressful Times (1995), all published by Rodmell Press. 

In praise of Lasater, Patricia Walden states, “Judith Lasater presents timeless wisdom with clarity and insight. She is a well-seasoned yogini, who writes from personal experience on how to use the events of daily life as yoga poses for the mind and heart.”

Erich Schiffmann states: "Yes! Living Your Yoga is what it's all about. Here is a clear and friendly book that will help anyone embody the wisdom of yoga by consciously bringing it into daily life. The exercises are fun. They can help you learn how to do yoga all the time—now and now and now—when you are in the yoga room and when you are not. Take this book to heart."

Below, you will find some words of wisdom that Judith was kind enough to share from her blog, as well as a link to the show. The link will become active once the show goes live on Monday.

Make Peace with the Present Moment

by Judith Hanson Lasater

Too often our mental process is to judge ourselves for what we are thinking or feeling. A thought arises and our inner dialogue says something like, “Oh, I shouldn’t be thinking that” or “How can I be thinking/feeling that when I am a yoga student, teacher or meditator?”

Then we react to those judgments with even more judgments for judging, and we are caught in a repeating pattern from hell.

A practice I have been enjoying for some months now is to “make peace with the present moment.” That means that when thoughts arise followed by thoughts of judgment I tell myself that the whole process is part of my practice: the original thoughts and the secondary or following thoughts as well. I do this by saying to myself, “how human of me to have a thought of X.” This helps so much when I look at the behavior of others as well.

When I say silently to myself, “How human of him to act/react with anger or fear or disappointment” then there is a space for compassion to arise in me. And I like how that feels. Then I am at peace with the present moment.

Copyright 2013 by Judith Hanson Lasater. Reprinted with permission.

http://judithlasater.com/writings/index.html

Six Weeks to Yehidah Wins Pinnacle Book Achievement Award and Other News

I'm thrilled to announce that Six Weeks to Yehidah has another accolade in its bag: a Summer 2012 Pinnacle Book Achievement Award. That others are finding value in my work and recognizing me with these honors humbles me more than I can say. As I wrote SWTY, I was so involved in the all-consuming process of creation that I never thought about what might happen once the book came out. Every day now is a surprise and a delight as I watch the book gradually making its way into the world, one reader, one award, one library at a time.

As well, I'd like to announce that Donna Baier Stein and I were interviewed this past Thursday, by R Jeffreys, of The Write Step, on Tiferet Talk. The subject of the talk was the forthcoming Tiferet Talk book, a collection of interviews to be released in Winter 2012. I'll be certain to let you know more about this project as I learn more myself. In the meantime, I hope you'll listen to the interview. R Jeffreys was an amazing host--fun, charismatic, warm--and Donna Baier Stein was her ever gracious, always lovely self, sharing the mission of Tiferet and explaining her founding vision.

In publication news, my poem, "For Baudelaire," just came out in the Fox Chase Review, an invitation only journal, and another poem, "Creation Myth," was just released in the Summer 2012 issue of the Manor House Quarterly. The issue, entitled "She," is a vital exploration of our understanding of the feminine. I'm honored to be included in both journals.

Tiferet Talk Interview with Donna Baier Stein and Yours Truly

Please join us tomorrow night at 7 PM EST for a Tiferet Talk interview with Donna Baier Stein and Yours Truly, guest hosted by R Jeffreys Author, of The Write Step. We’ll be talking about the forthcoming Tiferet Talk book, scheduled for release in winter 2012. The book includes interviews with such incredible guests as Julia Cameron, Robert Pinsky, Floyd Skloot, and more. As well, Donna will talk about her founding vision and Tiferet’s beautiful global mission.

Donna Baier Stein is the publisher of Tiferet and an accomplished, award-winning author in her own right. She received the PEN/New England Discovery Award for her novel and her story collection was a Finalist in the Iowa Fiction Awards. . She's been a John Hopkins Univ. Writing Seminars Fellow, a Bread Loaf Scholar, a New Jersey Council on the Arts grant recipient, a Founding Editor of Bellevue Literary Review and a Scholar at this year's Summer Literary Seminars in Lithuania. Her work has appeared in Virginia Quarterly Review, Prairie Schooner, Puerto del Sol, Washingtonian, and many other journals and anthologies. And in her other life, she's written copy for Smithsonian, World Wildlife Fund, Time magazine, and many other marketing clients.

R Jeffreys is a published poet, essayist; playwright; Editor-in-Chief; editorial consultant; featured blogger and book editor; and host of the popular radio show, "The Write Step with R Jeffreys." His “WriteStep” blog was chosen by Networkedblogs.com as one of the top ten blogs for writing advice. He is also a web Shorty Award nominee and has written for the theater and many well-known stand-up comedians, life coaches, media publications, and web sites. As well, Jeff is the Program Organizer and host of the Boston chapter of the international event 100 Thousand Poets for Change. Currently, he’s editing Stories from a Holiday Heart, an anthology scheduled for release in November 2012.

The Mnemosyne Weekly: Poem Twenty-Two (Divakaruni)

Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

"The World Tree"

from Leaving Yuba City

Just a couple of hours ago, I had the most exhilarating conversation with Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni for Tiferet Talk. If you were not able to listen live, I urge you to listen to the archive as soon as possible. She said the most beautiful things about the importance of telling stories and building communities. As well, in honor of her recent novel, One Amazing Thing, she shared with us a truly amazing story from her own life. What a gift this interview was!

Needless to say, I've chosen one of Divakaruni's poems to memorize this week. It comes from the collection Leaving Yuba City, which was published in 1997 and encompasses a variety of topics. Here's a blurb from Booklist: “Everything Divakaruni touches with her exquisitely sensitive writer’s mind—whether it’s a memory, or a scene between wife and husband—turns to gold. She demonstrated her mastery of the short story in Arranged Marriages, and of the novel in The Mistress of Spices , and now shows her mastery of poetry in this bittersweet volume, her third collection. Each of her lyrical and haunting poems opens slowly, like a flower, then rapidly picks up speed and intensity until it glows like a meteor as it plunges into the deepest recesses of the heart. Divakaruni begins with devastatingly eloquent evocations of a sorrowful childhood in Darjeeling, then moves on to imaginative and compelling poems inspired by the photographs of Raghubir Singh, paintings by Francesco Clemente, and films by Indian directors, including Satyajit Ray and Mira Nair. In the final section, she dramatizes the circumscribed lives of persecuted Punjab farmers who immigrated early in this century to Yuba City, California. Strongly narrative, shimmeringly detailed, and emotionally acute, Divakaruni’s poetry embraces pain and beauty in its affirmation of grace."

I hope you enjoy the poem and the interview as much as I did!


The World Tree

The tree grows out of my navel. Black
as snakeskin, it slithers upward, away
from my voice. Spreads
across the entire morning, its leaf-tongues
drinking the light. It bores its roots
into my belly till I can no longer tell them
from my dry, gnarled veins. And when it is sure
I will never forget the pain
of its birthing, it parts its branches

so I can see, far
in that ocean of green,
a figure, tiny and perfect, pale
as ivory, leaning
on his elbow. He looks down and I know
that mouth, those eyes. Mine.
I raise my arm. I am calling
loud as I can. He gazes
into the distance, the bright, rippling
air. It is clear
he sees, hears nothing. I continue
to call. The tree grows and grows
into the world between us.

John E. Welshons and the Open Heart for Tiferet Talk

Tomorrow, May 21st, at 7 PM EST, I have the honor of interviewing renowned spiritual writer, John E. Welshons for Tiferet Talk. In addition to authoring the books One Soul, One Love, One Heart: The Sacred Path to Healing All Relationships, When Prayers Aren't Answered, and Awakening from Grief, Welshons is the co-author (with Mark Victor Hansen) of the audio tape Healing the Grief (…of The Loss of a Loved One).

As well, Welshons is the founder and president of Open Heart Seminars, an organization whose aim is to increase spiritual awareness and education, and he lectures frequently to businesses, churches, hospitals, hospices, synagogues, colleges, and universities throughout the United States.

Welshons holds a B.A. in Religious Studies from the University of South Florida and an M.A. in History of Religions from Florida State University.

Of Welshon’s most recent book, One Soul, One Love, One Heart, Edward M. Hallowell says, “Absolutely superb. Full of blessings for readers who seek deeper, more meaningful relationships and greater forgiveness and healing, this beautiful book is a wonderful antidote to our society’s tendency toward emotional isolation and spiritual disconnection. It will help you find your spiritual path and your spiritual heart in every relationship, in every circumstance, in every moment.”

I hope you are able to join us for the interview! If you are not able to listen live, you can listen to the permanent archives at the Blogtalk site or on itunes any time after the show airs.

Richard Jeffrey Newman and the Power of Voice in Poetry

I would love for you to join me at Tiferet Talk this Sunday, 4/22/12, at 7 pm EST, for a dynamic conversation about poetry, translation, and teaching with Richard Jeffrey Newman. Newman is the author of the poetry collection The Silence Of Men; the translator of two masterpieces of 13th century Iranian poetry, Selec­tions from Saadi’s Gulis­tan and Selec­tions from Saadi’s Bus­tan, and translator of The Teller of Tales, a portion of the Shahnameh, the Persian national epic. He is also co-translator, with Professor John Moyne, of A Bird in the Gar­den of Angels, a selec­tion of work by Rumi.

As well, Newman serves as Per­sian Arts Festival’s Lit­er­ary Arts Direc­tor, co-curates the monthly Shab-e She’r (Night of Persian Poetry) at the Bowery Poetry Club, sits on the advi­sory boards of The Trans­la­tion Project and Jack­son Heights Poetry Fes­ti­val, is a speaker with the New York Council for the Humanities, and is an Associate Professor of English at Nassau Community College.

Please enjoy the following interview and reading from the Jackson Heights Poetry Festival. Many thanks to Nancy Wait for finding it.

Golems, Jazz, and Naked Magic with Tony Barnstone

This Sunday, 3/25/12, at 7 PM EST, I will host the incredible, versatile Tony Barnstone on Tiferet Talk for a conversation about poetry, editing, and translation. Barnstone is the recipient of many awards, including a Pushcart Prize, the Paumanok Poetry Award, the Randall Jarrell Poetry Prize, and the Pablo Neruda Prize in Poetry. He is the author, editor, and translator of over a dozen books, including collections of poems and writings about poetry. His poetry collections are Naked Magic, Impure, Sad Jazz: Sonnets, The Golem of Los Angeles, and Tongue of War, a collection of dramatic monologues set in the Pacific during the Second World War.

Yusef Komunyakaa says of Barnstone's Impure, "I admire Tony Barnstone's Impure because of the collection's unrelenting believability and lyrical certainty. Plain-spoken and magical, this poet knows how to make imagination and the real world collide softly. There is a clarity in Impure that reaches beyond the formlessness of modern life. Borders are crossed in the psyche and the flesh, and this collection seems like an elongated song that embraces the most elusive moments buried in language and nuance through the pure naming of things - a mantra of what is and what is dreamt - that takes into the sacred territory what no ordinary compass can plot or unplot."

Robert Olen Butler says of Barnstone's Tongue of War, "Brilliant in conception, comprehensive in its humanity, exquisitely voiced by a stunning range of characters, Tongue of War is not only a deeply moving work, it is an endearingly important one. Tony Barnstone has revealed humankind's capacity both for evil and redemption with a power that few writers have ever achieved."

Please join us live or listen to the archives at blogtalk or itunes any time after the show has aired.

I leave you with a beautiful poem by Tony Barnstone:
 

Vision of Milk 

from Readymades at The Drunken Boat

Because I wished I were wise,
because I wanted to become air,

because I am in love with zeros,
I swam in deep light-distances.

I saw my shadow wavering before me;
I saw a footpath of light.

I saw clouds like swelling milk udders;
they flowed like milk into my hands.

I watched the pregnant moon give birth to the sun,
and I saw the blood.

I watched the world drown in shallow waters,
and I caught that little whiff of carrion,

and it almost destroyed me,
but instead it made me stronger,

because even a wound has the power to heal,
because to live does not mean to be sick,

and because the galaxy is a woman and she is good
I took her breast in my hand and I drank.

Seeking Shulman

On 1/9/12 at 7 pm EST, I will have the honor of conducting a Tiferet Talk interview with Jinen Jason Shulman about consciousness; the nature of existence; and healing the mind, body, and spirit. Shulman is the founder of both Enlightenment Online and A Society of Souls training in Integrated Kabbalistic Healing, IM/personal Movement and the Work of Return. Shulman, who has been authorized to teach the Dharma as well, is on the faculties of the New York Open Center, the Esalen Institute, and the Omega Institute. He's also a member of the Professional Advisory Board of the Center for Spirituality and Psychotherapy of the National Institute for the Psychotherapies. Shulman is the author of The Instruction Manual for Receiving God and Kabbalistic Healing: a Path to an Awakened Soul.


A true seeker and an expert in many fields, Shulman also writes poetry, composes music, paints, and studies physics. He has released three CDs: The Great Transparency, Unlock My Heart, and Buddha-Cloud. To hear "Wisdom Way," one of Shulman's unreleased songs, which can only be heard on the Enlightenment Online WEB site, click here: http://www.en-on.org/jasons_music.  


Jason's teachings help students accept imperfection and restore their egos to a healthy state through honesty, acceptance, and awakening. To listen to some of Jason's lectures, click here: http://www.youtube.com/user/JinenJasonShulman?ob=video-mustangbase.

Until Monday, I will leave you with a few "seed passages" from Shulman's The Instruction Manual for Receiving God:


"We need only embrace ourselves in conscious awareness, with deep knowledge and without judgment, to feel God" (Shulman 16).


"Being with God is a nondual state. This means it can never be achieved by choosing only one side of reality in reaction to a less preferred condition or state" (Shulman 56).


"The ego likes to think it can achieve a state called 'enlightenment,' and then its work will be finished. But 'awakened' just means you'd better roll up your sleeves and pay attention, because life continues to happen" (Shulman 70).

Tiferet Talk Interview with Josip Novakovich

Tomorrow night at 7 pm EST I have the great honor of interviewing Josip Novakovich for Tiferet Talk. Novakovich is the author of three short story col­lec­tions (Yolk, Sal­va­tion and Other Dis­as­ters, Infi­deli­ties: Sto­ries of War and Lust), the novel April Fool’s Day, two col­lec­tions of nar­ra­tive essays (Apri­cots from Cher­nobyl, Plum Brandy), and two text­books (Writ­ing Fic­tion Step by Step, Fic­tion Writer’s Work­shop). He is the recip­i­ent of the Whit­ing Writer’s Award, a Guggen­heim fel­low­ship, two fel­low­ships from the National Endow­ment of the Arts, an award from the Ingram Mer­rill Foun­da­tion, and an Amer­i­can Book Award. He’s been anthol­o­gized in Best Amer­i­can Poetry, Push­cart Prize, and O. Henry Prize Sto­ries. Kirkus Review calls him “the best Amer­i­can short story writer of the decade.”

Novakovich's works are rich and deep and written in beautiful, clean prose that captures the nuances and complexities of being human in a variety of settings and circumstances. The story he will read tomorrow, "Ice," focuses on the experience of two boys in the Croation town of Nizograd as they discover Coca Cola for the first time. The story, of course, is about so much more than Coca Cola. I hope you will join me in discovering the many layers of meaning in this and Novakovich's other works.

We will talk, as well, about his writing textbooks, which not only inspire, but which also offer fantastic practical advice.

Bear Poetics

Tonight I have the great honor of interviewing J. P. Dancing Bear, a larger than life force on the contemporary poetry scene. Bear is the author of three full length collections of poetry, as well as several chapbooks. His fourth collection, Family of Marsupial Centaurs, is due out later this year. He is the editor of American Poetry Journal, owner of Dream Horse Press, and publisher of the Orphic Prize, the APJ Book Prize Series, and the first animal rights poetry anthology, And We the Creatures.  He is also the host of Out of Our Minds, a weekly poetry radio show for public radio station KKUP.

The interview will take place at Tiferet Talk at 7 pm EST.

Natasha Sajé says of Bear, "Using myth, politics, nature, and art, J. P. Dancing Bear asks questions that can only be answered through poetry. These accomplished and various poems feature sure-handed lines and vivid images. J. P Dancing Bear has an ear for 'aspens turing into an imitation of fire' and 'bullfrog stars hunger[ing] for crickets.'

Please follow links below to read Bear's beautiful poetry:

http://www.theadirondackreview.com/dancingbear.html

http://www.pankmagazine.com/j-p-dancing-bear/

http://peonymoon.wordpress.com/2010/09/13/j-p-dancing-bear-five-poems/

For more information about J. P Dancing Bear, please visit: http://home.comcast.net/~jpdancingbear/.

Elizabeth Cunningham and the Red-Robed Priestess

Tomorrow night I have the great honor of interviewing Elizabeth Cunningham, one of the most fearless and authentic writers alive today. Cunningham is the author of the famed Maeve Chronicles, as well as many individual books, such as The Wild Mother; The Return of the Goddess, a Divine Comedy; How to Spin Gold, a Woman’s Tale; Small Bird, and Wild Mercy. She is the direct descendant of nine generations of Episcopal priests, and she grew up hearing rich liturgical and biblical language, which, among other literary and personal influences, strongly informs her writing. The novel Red-Robed Priestess, the fourth of The Maeve Chronicles will be released in mid-November, and tomorrow night, Cunningham will read a preview from this much anticipated book.

The interview will take place at Tiferet Talk at 7 pm EST, tomorrow night, 11/17/11.

Cunningham has stated that both The Maeve Chronicles and her interfaith ministry express her profound desire to reconcile her Christian roots with her call to explore the divine feminine. For more information about Elizabeth Cunningham, please visit: http://www.passionofmarymagdalen.com/pages/about_elizabeth_cunningham_author.html

Click here to see the Publishers Weekly review of the forthcoming Red-Robed Priestess.

Below see an excerpt from Magdalen Rising : The Beginning by Elizabeth Cunningham, published 2007 by Monkfish Book Publishing. Copyright © 2007 Elizabeth Cunningham

Chapter One

The Birth of Brightness

You have all heard of his birth in Bethlehem in a stable -- though his mother told me it was really a cave, and she's vague about the location. You know the story of the attendant animals, the bedazzled shepherds, and the Magi who followed the long-tailed star. But did you know that the star had a twin? The sister star chose a tiny island in a northern sea. Its long tail lashed cold waters. Far from that holy birth in the hills, brightness rose from beneath the wave.

That was me.

I had a full head of red hair exclaimed upon, as I crowned, by the seven midwives, my foster mothers all. I had no need of awe-struck shepherds. My mothers kept sheep and pigs and goats besides. And listen, even though it's midnight, the mourning doves lift their heads to make soft, wondering noises, almost obscured by the raucous chorus of ravens in the wood and the cry of seabirds from their nests in the cliffs. And yes, if you pay attention, you can hear the walrus and seals barking for joy on the rocks. Wild horses answer, and a she-bear roused from sleep adds low, grumbling praise. Now if you look very carefully at the island's heart between mountain breasts, you can glimpse a moonlit flash of gold as the salmon of wisdom leaps from its pool.

And what need had I of visiting wise men when I was already surrounded by the Warrior Witches of Tir na mBan, the Land of Women? Ah, see that name stirs some forgotten memory. Just as everyone is a little bit Irish, who has not dreamed of the Shining Isles always to the West? The Summer Land. The Apple Isle. The Isle of Women. The Land of Youth. The Isles of the Blest. Dangerous, paradisiacal places where a hero could be made or undone. The greatest heroes -- Cuchulain and Fionn MacCumhail -- received their training in the arts of war and the mysteries of love at the hands of women who dwelled in island strongholds of ancient, female power.

At least, that's how it was in what my mothers called "the good old days," lamenting the lack of heroes in these slack modern times. Maybe it was the times. Though none of us knew it then, that pivotal moment, when he and I were born, was the meeting place of history and myth, of time and time out of time.

Click Here to read the rest of the excerpt.

Renaissance Woman

Now more than ever, I know so many people who perform a whole host of activities and pull them all off exceptionally well. These are not Jacks of all trades, masters of none. These are people who are tapped into the very essence of creativity, people who shimmer and glow with a seemingly unstoppable surge of inspiration and ideas. They are the ones who follow through on those ideas, acting as beacons, exemplifying what is possible for us all under the right conditions and with a lot of passion and hard work.

I do believe that we all have this potential, and I believe that one of the ways we can learn to activate it is by talking with and listening to those who are already successfully tapped in.

This upcoming Sunday night, I have the honor of interviewing Lois P. Jones, award winning poet, radio show host, published photographer, international editor, reading series producer, documentarist, and expert on Argentina's wine industry. I'm sure I forgot something. Probably more than one something. Nevertheless, I will be mining Jones's unique and generous mind for understanding as to what makes her the creative force she is.

I'm attaching a poem by Jones and a photograph she took in San Miguel de Allende in January of 2009, as well as some videos of her reading her poems. If you have any questions you'd like me to consider asking her, please feel free to leave them in the comments below. You can listen to the show live at Tiferet Talk on blogtalk radio at 7 PM Eastern Standard Time this Sunday, July 24th. Afterwards, you can listen to the archive indefinitely at the blogtalk site or access a podcast of the interview at itunes. 

Milonga for a Blind Man


Time is both loss and memory.
—Jorge Luis Borges

In the middle of the night
a man takes a key
from his pocket.

In the middle of the night
he climbs to the top of the stairs.
From his balcony he remembers daylight,

the crumbled cement and the cracks
on the tavern below. The way the sky spoke
to him, the last one with anything to say.

And the opening of the flowers
when they would open for him.
Pink or coral, her lips staining
his with a memory – a breath

and a daydream of pampas and hibiscus.
His shirt buttoned down to the waist
and the white skin of a butterfly.

In the middle of the night
he remembers a snow heart
and the red walls of morning

where he walked the streets
in search of distance. Someone
has counted his days

before he was born. And this blindness
that followed plucked out his eyes
to sleep. It always comes to this –

edges fading from the familiar,
a city vague and celestial. He has lost
count of all his endings.

Published in Rose & Thorn, Winter 2008