“Living in a Sentient World”
with Judy Grahn
Wednesday, February 10, 2021

“For forty years I’ve been thinking and writing about the intense psychic connections we can experience with creatures, including insects, that live around us, incorporating them into my poetry and my novel, Mundane’s World, as well as in stories and essays.  This paper will discuss how to recognize and induce these connections of inter-species consciousness (shared sacred space), how to record and believe the experiences, and then how to write them.  My goal is to share these accounts with more skeptical humans in order to reduce both cynicism and romanticism, to strengthen bonds between people and creature life, to encourage recognition of shared minds, and to amplify the value we place on beings who share space with us. I’ll illustrate the topic with selections from my forthcoming book, Touching Creatures, Touching Spirit: Living in a Sentient World. (Red Hen Press, Pasadena, California, May 4, 2021). “

 

Judy Grahn is internationally known as a poet, author and cultural theorist. She has published fifteen books, with two more forthcoming in May, 2021. Judy holds a Ph.D. in Integral Studies from the California Institute of Integral Studies, where she often teaches. She is retired co-director and core faculty of the Women’s Spirituality MA program at New College of California, and the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology and Sofia University. The Commonality Institute,  an international community of scholars and changemakers, promotes and teaches her work.

Art by Helen Klebesadel   Helen is an artist, educator, and activist working in Madison WI.

 Recording Date: Wednesday, January 27, 2021 at 3 pm live online Host: ASWM Presenter: Judy Grahn Moderated by: Starr Goode Source: ASWM Event Online – Zoom Recording