This year we will explore the theme of Revolutionary Love throughout the week- in our morning sessions, scheduled activities , our youth program and chapels. Inspired by the Revolutionary Love Project, a national movement to reclaim love as a force for justice, healing and transformation, the Star Union staff are designing ways for us to know and love ourselves better in order to meet and engage with others and even opponents in support of creating a better future.
Embedded in all we do, explore and create together is the importance of JOY- a quality of life that sustains us.
Understanding and Loving Self
How well do we know ourselves? How do we understand and sustain ourselves during times of stress and upheaval? How do we find the courage needed to be brave during these times?
We will spend time with Jim Sersich and The Enneagram, a system of basic personality types and a tool to help you understand yourself and the other people in your life. It shows you the many ways to look at the options you have in any situation and gives you the freedom to choose. And its so much more than that, too.
Additionally, there will be interactive and engaging sessions in our morning time together that will explore understanding and loving ourselves as a path toward building bravery and courage. These are facilitated separately by Kemp Harris and Angel Russek.
Understanding and Loving Others
How do we “See No Stranger” asks Valerie Kaur, founder of the Revolutionary Love Project. How do we accept the invitation to “look upon anyone and say, You are a part of me I do not yet know”. Whether with friends, family, folks at Star Union or those in our extended community at home, building deep solidarity is called for at this time of upheaval in our nation and world. In the model offered in the Revolutionary Love mandala, these are the people and places we get to wonder about, grieve with and fight for. The Reverend Jennifer Hackett, our minister of the week, will lead a morning workshop for us inspired by this theme.
Understanding and Loving Opponents
Kara Douglas, our guide in this session, says the following- There is a yoga term: chalana, which is often translated as churning. Think of a river that rages with spring rain and snowmelt, it’s waters turbid and upturned. This churning unearths sediments and brings them to the surface, suspending them in visceral and visible ways. It can also be a metaphor for a similar process that takes place within ourselves when we allow unsettling circumstances to be experienced, processed and reintegrated instead of avoiding them altogether.
In the Revolutionary Love model, there are practices for Loving our Opponents, which can also be a quick path to some strong inner and outer churning – a stirring up of our own fears, biases, aversions and anger, in our bodies and in our behaviors.
In this session, we’ll explore some ways to play with chalana – the practice of churning – so that we can turn toward it when life demands presence in difficult circumstances. We’ll experiment with meditation techniques that help us practice staying present with people and circumstances that provoke opposition. We’ll investigate the roles of rage, listening and
reimagining in building the foundation for deliberate action when we’re faced with obstacles in our path.
a conference on Star Island 
You must be logged in to post a comment.