| TNS Events | |
Jun 12: Jean Shinoda Bolen, Francesca Zambello, and Kristina Flanagan
Goddess-Archetypes in the Ring Cycle and in Us
June 23: Anna Deavere Smith
Listening Between the Lines
Aug 28: Kate Levinson
Emotional Currency
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Art Exhibitions
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Apr 17 - Jun 24
Arthur Okamura
A Bolinas Life
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| TNS Online | NEW Podcasts
Sarah Hobson Working with Women in Sub-Saharan Africa (Recorded Mar 16) Steve Heilig The Modern Evolution of Death (Recorded Mar 6) US Poet Laureate
WS Merwin Reading and In Conversation with Eric Karpeles (Recorded Feb 13) Gregory Orr The Blessing: Poetry as Survival (Recorded Feb 11) Dr. Margaret Kripke Environmental Cancer Risk: What We Can Do Now (Recorded Feb 7) Dr. Stuart Lord East-West Contemplative Education at Naropa University (Recorded Feb 1) See our website
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Who Are We?
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The New School at Commonweal presents conversations, book readings, performances, and other events with thought and action leaders who are changing our world. The events, 100 over the past four years, are recorded and then offered as podcasts on iTunes and our website. Most of our events are offered free of charge as gifts to the Commonweal community - and you are part of it - giving forward into a circle of generosity. Kyra Epstein, The New School Coordinator TheNewSchool@Commonweal.org www.The-New-School.org
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The New School
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Hotel Rumi, Konya, Turkey
The prophets are like one single being. If you refuse one of them, you refuse them all.  | |
Rumi's Shrine. Photo by Sharyle Patton
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The rooftop balcony of the Hotel Rumi overlooks Konya Mevlana Museum,as Rumi's shrine has been known since Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of the Republic of Turkey, closed it in 1925. It reopened it a year later as a museum, but never ceased being a shrine.
From the rooftop, I watch lines of seekers snake across the marble
courtyard - stout Turkish women with sun-browned faces join tourists in every imaginable garb. They traverse a rose garden, skirt tombs of the "silenced ones," pass the flower-crowned gravestones of the mothers, peer into the small cells where the Sufis lived, gape at the kitchen where food and souls were cooked together, and don plastic slippers to enter the shrine. In an inner room they find Rumi's sarcophagus, alongside that of his son, covered with a silver canopy, topped by two green turbans. Their resting place is surrounded by the sarcophagi of dozens of family and followers.
Mevlana Jelaleddin Rumi was born September 30, 1207, in Afghanistan. He died in Konya December 17, 1273, at 62. Rumi's father, the Sultan of Scholars, fled Mongol invaders in Afghanistan and settled here when Rumi was young. When Ibn Arabi, Rumi's equally gifted predecessor, met Rumi's father - with the young boy Rumi trailing behind him - he observed, "What an extraordinary sight: a sea followed by an ocean."
Sufis believe that the blessing of saints may come with visiting their graves. For four days we have stayed close to Rumi, visiting his shrine several times each day. In Table Talk*, Rumi said:
If in winter, trees do not put out leaves and bear fruit, does that mean they are idle? Of course not! They are always at work. Winter is the season of gathering-in, summer the season of giving. Everyone sees the giving, but not the gathering in...
In the mystical life, gathering-in is prayer and silent contemplation... giving is the performing of acts of love and justice in the world. Breathe in through worship of the majestic peace... breathe out in loving and just action the power that has been bestowed on you by the beloved.
Rumi helps us remember what it means to be fully human.
Best wishes,
Michael Lerner
*Andrew Harvey, Teachings of Rumi, Shamabala Press
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 Sunday, June 12, 2pm-4pm
Commonweal Gallery
Jean Shinoda Bolen with Francesa Zambello and Kristina Flanagan
Goddess-Archetypes in the Ring Cycle and in Us
The New School at Commonweal and Point Reyes Books are pleased to present this engaging event for lovers of archetype, myth, opera, and Jung. Jean Shinoda Bolen, MD, and Francesca Zambella (rehearsals permitting) will speak, discuss, and lead a lively discussion with Kristina Flanagan about the goddesses in Wagner's Ring Cycle opera dramas.
Jean Shinoda Bolen, MD, is a Jungian analyst, psychiatrist, and author. Her book, Ring of Power: Love vs. Power in the Ring Cycle and in Us, connects archetypal psychology, dysfunctional family psychology, and patriarchy.
Francesca Zambello, an internationally recognized director of opera and theater, is artistic advisor to the San Francisco Opera and director for The Ring for the San Francisco Opera.
RSVP to the New School at thenewschool@commonweal.org.
Please carpool! Check our rideshare page to offer or search for a ride to the event (password: thenewschool). |
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 Thursday, June 23, 2pm-4pm
Commonweal Gallery
Anna Deavere Smith and Eric Karpeles
Listening Between the Lines
Observation is one of the most exacting skills every artist must cultivate. For a writer, listening is critical to the process of transmuting observed reality into art. Playwright and performer Anna Deavere Smith has shaped a singular career mining the riches of both spoken and unspoken language. Her current production, Let Me Down Easy, is centered on the drama of the human body and its rough handling in the hands of the medical-industrial complex. Find out more on our website.
Anna Deavere Smith is a poet, teacher, actor, and playwright. Her explosive theater works about race in America - Fires in the Mirror and Twilight: Los Angeles 1992 - garnered considerable acclaim. Television and film credits include Nurse Jackie, The West Wing, The American President and The Human Stain. A professor at NYU, Smith is founder of The Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue and has taught at Harvard and Stanford. She was named a MacArthur Fellow in 1996.
RSVP to the New School at thenewschool@commonweal.org.
Please carpool! Check our rideshare page to offer or search for a ride to the event (password: thenewschool). |
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