Use this thread to make suggestions for new topics, or to comment on the overall process.

We can also use it as an "overflow thread" to deal with miscellaneous topics that don't quite fit on other threads.

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I'll be on the road for the next few days visiting family in Louisiana, so I won't be too active on this forum (will check on it if I can get online).

Back on Monday, I hope (snow and ice predicted for Wichita).

Phil, I have suggestions for two new categories

Slow Prayer, which I just started experimenting with last night, but with great resutls. When a novice asked St. Teresa how to contemplate, she said, "Pray the Our Father. Just take an hour to go through it." OTOH, this might be better simply on the Christian contemplative methods thread.

The other is kything. (Rhymes with tithing). Kything is difficult to describe without sounding weird--but I've found it a wonderful part of my spiritual life, and I believe more of my growth has come from it than contemplation. I have a book review on the Paulist Press book, Kything: The Art of Spiritual Presence by Savary and Berne, on my website at http://frimmin.com/books/kything.html .

In their book, Savary and Berne focus on kything as shared loving presence and attention, but I sometimes kythe with saints and other holy people and have mental conversations with them.

Many of the great mystics and saints have described what can be called kything experiences, but I also believe that many--very many--lay contemplatives and mystics kythe, but have little or no forum for sharing their experiences outside of the New Age, since none of the major religions discuss it per se.

What do you think?

jon

Thanks, Jon. Those are good suggestions.

That method of praying the Lord's prayer is a form of kataphatic meditation which is already provided for in the "Ladder of prayer" thread.

Kything, however, almost seems to be in a class by itself. What about a new thread on "Meditative Explorations" or something similar, which would allow for sharing experiences which don't seem to fit under the usual kathaphatic-apophatic and even Eastern meditative approaches? These don't necessarily need to be prayer experiences. Practices like kything, holotropic breathing, hypnosis, focusing, and active imagination come to mind, here.

I think I'll just go ahead and start the thread and let's see how it goes.

Hi Phil,

How about a thread somewhere on this site (not sure which category, for sharing poems, prayers and rants with rules. It is a profoundly , transformational spiriritual practice that deeply kindles creativity, community, acceptance and compassion, and gets people out of their heads and into their hearts. Persons coming to it for the first time would need to be brought to the "Rules" page first

The rules are borrowed from InterPlay and are as follows:

1. All entries are the indivduals own creation and created in the moment, totally improvised, and limited to 30 lines or less. (Normally a time constraint is given, but that would be difficult to manage, we just trust one another to play by the rules) No links or references to any outside author or authority other then your own conscious, creative self.

2. All comments about anyone elses entries are limited to "compassionate noticings" of:
- the witnesses experience of the entry
- the creators process
- noticings by the creator of the entry about their process in creating and sharing it...

Examples of noticings:

I noticed how much I learned about you
I noticed I felt sad, happy,angry etc
I noticed how playful, serious, angry, hard on yourself you are... etc
I noticed I feel the same way or differently then you do about that...
I noticed how I wanted to hear more about what you had to say about that

3. Topics could be given daily, (they could be made up in the moment, but it's really best if is a word you have to improvise on.)

Topics could include anything "from the sublime to the ridiculous" as Grandfather Macki use to say.. For example "grace, communion, prayer, sacrament, to changing diapers, traffic, hair, dancing,,,etc.

Poetry forms are is easily fostered by having people write "a babble" on a word without using the word... For instance, below is a brief babble on....

"Babies"

they can melt the hardest hearts
and make us smile,
even if they're not . . .
from being too tired to sleep
on bellies too swollen to eat
their daily ration . .
if lucky enough
to get one.

Writers Noticing: I noticed I had no idea where my babble would take me. I noticed it brought me into a sobering place of grace, and it made me aware of how greedy and grateful I am at the same time.

Or a word like "shoes"

Women always have more
then we need
Most of mine, I don't even wear anymore,
I never really liked them much anyway...
especially the ones from a previous life
(in this life time,)
when I chose to dress
better then I cared to
for a soul sucking profession
that paid too well,
for too long
until I woke up one day
on the other side of
freedom.

Writers Noticing:
Again, I had no idea where this word would take me...Really need to clean out my closet...again.

Have at it, Pauline . . . and a great start!

I'd suggest the Shalom Place Lounge, and start a new thread, entitling it however you wish. Maybe copy/paste from the post above to star things off, or it will remain buried down here in an altogether different kind of forum.

I really like the idea of having daily subject for poetry�or something of the sort. Maybe one day it is limericks, the next, Iambic Pentameter. (And I have to admit that I know next to nothing about the myriad technical forms of poetry�but it would be interesting to learn.)

So please have at it, Virya.
Although I may mispronounce
Regarding your meaning, I hear ya
We need a new thread with some bounce