This document provides an agenda for an upcoming event on May 27th from 8:30-10pm at a church. The event will focus on creativity and birthing oneself. It will include meditation, contemplation of spirituality through art, journaling and discussion. Participants will be invited to write a haiku poem expressing a paradox or lens through which they see the world. The document also provides instructions on how to write a haiku, including focusing on fleeting images or feelings, including a reference to the season, and creating a subject shift.

1. Coming Next:
3. Creativity:3. Creativity:3. Creativity:3. Creativity:
Birthing OurselvesBirthing OurselvesBirthing OurselvesBirthing Ourselves
May 27, 2015May 27, 2015May 27, 2015May 27, 2015
7777----8:30 p.m.8:30 p.m.8:30 p.m.8:30 p.m.
In the upper room
at Northside
Presbyterian Church
Haiku
5-7-5 syllables
What are the paradoxes you see in yourself, life
& what are the lenses through which you see the world?
Write a haiku poem that expresses
a paradox or lens
Conversation:
What did you discover tonight?
What excites you & what frightens you
about discovering your spirituality?
What helps you stay steady?
Closing:
Blessing Ritual
Tonight’s Menu
Introduction
Meditation:
Body Prayer
Honoring Creator, Creation, Community & Core
Conversation:
Creating Our Spirituality vs. Receiving Others’ Certainties
The opposite of faith is not doubt, it is certainty.
It is madness. You can tell you have made God in your own
image when he or she hates the same people you do.
Anne Lamott
What does it mean for you to discover,
create your own spirituality?
Discover: Digging Into Our StoryDiscover: Digging Into Our StoryDiscover: Digging Into Our StoryDiscover: Digging Into Our Story
Copyright: All rights reserved. birdnest: Barb McRae, 2015.

2. Art:
Contemplation of our Spirituality
As you gaze at your picture:
1. What word comes to mind?
2. What mood, memory or story comes up?
3. What is this picture calling you to do, discover or be?
Journal:
Write down your thoughts from the contemplation
Conversation:
Sharing insights from our contemplation
Break
Paradoxes & Lenses
How to write a Haiku
Distill a poignant experience. Haiku traditionally
focuses on details of one's environment that relate
to the human condition. Think of a haiku as a medi-
tation of sorts that conveys an objective image or
feeling without employing subjective judgment and
analysis.
•Japanese poets traditionally used haiku to capture
and distill a fleeting natural image, such as a frog
jumping into a pond, rain falling onto leaves, or a
flower bending in the wind.
•Contemporary haiku may stray from nature as a
subject. Urban environments, emotions, relation-
ships and even humorous topics may be haiku .
Include a seasonal reference. A reference to the
season or changing of the seasons, referred to in
Japanese as kigo, is an essential element of haiku.
The reference may be obvious, as in using a word
like "spring" or "autumn" to indicate the season, or
it might be subtler.
Create a subject shift. In keeping with the idea that
haiku should contain two juxtaposed ideas, shift the
perspective on your chosen subject so that your
poem has two parts. For example, you could focus
on the detail of an ant crawling on a log, then juxta-
pose that image with an expansive view of the whole
forest, or the season. the ant is currently inhabiting.