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Hi everyone. I’m Jane, and I am so jazzed that this group is happening! I stumbled upon this book, and when I started reading it, was awestruck. I’ve read it straight through once, slowly over a year, and have studied it in bits and pieces since. Even though I have felt in over my head with much of it, as I don’t have the background to understand all of its subtleties and references, it still gives me wonderful insights and shifts in consciousness every time I pick it up. It really is a profound book, and I refer to it often. It is already dog-eared and full of underlines.
A little about my background, I was raised Ccatholic and left the church in my teens, but the depth of the Christian tradition had already been installed (as a woman once told me — once a catholic, always a catholic). Since then, I deeply studied and practiced Tibetan Buddhism (and was authorized as a teacher). I’ve done a great deal of solitary meditation retreat, and my practice opened me back up to my Christian roots, reading the mystics and attempting the practices they spoke of. I found a great deal of parallels between aspects of my Buddhist practice and the practices of the mystics. Especially the practice elucidated in The Cloud of Unknowing has many parallels to my Buddhist practice. I also have a deep connection to earth-based wisdom (and the wisdom held by many indigenous traditions). For my work, I am a writer, I do spiritual mentoring for those who blend traditions, and I also teach writing as a spiritual practice.
I’m excited to have all of you to share with as I have Buddhist Sangha, but not Christian and I’ve been hungry for conversation around all of this — especially around this book. So when I found this course, I felt like I had one the grand prize game (for those of you who remember the bozo show)…
A fun fact: I live in Bolinas on the California coast. We are on the west side of the san andreas fault (which runs through the bolinas lagoon), which means that I am not on the same plate as the continental United States.
Thank you Carl, for this offering.
Hi Jane, so fun to read your introduction! I look forward to not only getting to now you better, but also learning from you. I have a feeling you will have many gems to share.
Jane, thanks for your introduction and thanks for being here! Your comments about MOTT are so in alignment with my own feelings about the book. And I love your “story”! I think this is the great invitation of our time: for people to dive deep into multiple traditions and find ways to integrate the depths, more than just a “lowest common denominator” blending, but truly a “deep calls to deep” integration. It’s not always easy — some of the challenges of interspirituality do show up in MOTT — and sometimes interspiritual work can seem really messy, but I think the Divine is more interested in our hearts than our ability to tidy things up.
Looking forward to the conversation!
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