In a few hours I’ll be heading to the Black Earth Institute‘s annual retreat. I’m a Senior Fellow of the Institute, an honor that I take even more seriously now that the late visionary leader Patricia Monaghan, the cofounder of BEI, has left us in her wake and moved on.
Where should BEI go from here? What is the most fertile relation between art, spirituality, and social justice?
I look forward to connecting with the many amazing people who will be at the retreat to immerse ourselves in some of these questions, deep in the magical hills of Wisconsin where the First Nations people built such phenomenal earthworks and the earth seems to rise up and hug us, where Patricia (author of Magical Gardens and her husband Michael planted such rich gardens—herb gardens, goddess gardens, giant vegetables, and vineyards even.
“Performance,” the theme of the retreat, is a topic passionately close to my heart and the heartbeat of my poetry. We will be Skyping in a performance with my beloved friend Joy Harjo as part of our reading Saturday night, and that in itself will be a joy. Happy harvests to all!
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