Cultivating Connections Recommends:  

Events and More for Metro Louisville - May 2015

Affirming Connections between Planet, People, Power and Possibilities

Table of Contents - Click to Jump to the Details
Wednesday the 6th * Louisville Sustainability Forum
Wednesday the 6th * The Louisville Table Project at the Loft
Saturday the 9th * Finding Beauty and Meaning in Your Own Unique Story
Saturday the 9th * Joe Grant Reflecting on his book "Still in the Storm"
Friday the 15th * Compassionate Louisville Town Hall Meeting at B-F
Friday the 15th * Festival of Faiths: Sacred World - Secular and Sacred
Saturday the 16th * Music in the Arbor featuring Keltricity
Sunday the 17th * Don't Miss The Power of Music Project Celebration Concert
Sunday the 17th * Louisville TimeBank Potluck Dinner
Monday the 18th * Social Change Book Club: How to Make Sense of Any Mess
Tuesday the 19th * Sierra Club: Antarctica: Expedition to an Ethereal World
Sunday, June 21 * Summer Solstice Sacred Celebration
Kentucky Environmental Foundation "Nerve" Film Seeks Support
Mark Steiner suggests we "Act Our Age" (adapted from his Huckabalou talk)
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Wednesday, May 6th, 12 - 1:45 pm
Louisville Sustainability Forum
Passionist Earth and Spirit Center
(located behind St Agnes Church at 1920 Newburg Road)

 
Featured Presenter:
Larraine Lauter OSU,MTS with
Water With Blessings

Larraine Lauter OSU, MTS (St. Meinrad School of Theology), is Executive Director and co-founder of Water With Blessings, an award-winning program that equips, empowers and entrusts mothers as agents of clean water and compassion for their children and communities.  In partnership with other faith-based entities (short- and long-term missioners), WWB has raised up over 5500 "Water Women" in 27 countries across the developing world since 2011.  The program is widely recognized as achieving true sustainability in the realm of water aid intervention, while empowering women for leadership and activating them for transformation through compassion.  The WWB household model takes this to a high level of sustainability with a spiritual foundation for service to one's own community, regardless of faith persuasion.  There are Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim and Christian Water Women!

And

Follow up Discussion About the Future of the Forum

Now in its seventh year, the purposes of the Louisville Sustainability Forum are:
1.We hold and promote the intention of sustainability for Louisville.
2. We establish and nourish relationships that strengthen
community and create change.
3. We create a space for discussion that inspires, motivates and deepens
our ability to catalyze social change.

Food & drink:
Feel free to bring a bag lunch. If you'd like to prepare extra food or drink to share with others,
that is always welcome!

 


 

Wednesday, May 6, 6:30 to 8:30 pm
The Louisville Table Project 
The Loft, 107 Crescent Ave

Let's have dinner and share our stories...

The Louisville Table Project encourages and empowers our community to gather for the simple, sacred practice of breaking bread and sharing stories.  We trust the transformative power of communal meals and authentic conversation to create a more connected and dynamic city.
 
We are launching the project by sharing a dinner every Wednesday in May. A variety of guests within the Louisville community will be invited to come hear the vision of the Louisville Table Project and participate in this prototype experience.  Our hope is to inspire and help facilitate a movement of shared meals, storytelling and connection across the diverse elements of our city.

You are receiving this invitation because we hope you will be interested in attending! More, since diversity is central to the experience, you are welcome to invite your own guest(s).  Ideally this would be someone with whom you may not normally socialize, but would like to know better.

Participation entails bringing a dish to share at the pot-luck meal. You are welcome to bring beer or wine.  Donations to ensure the sustainability of the Table Project are also welcomed.  
Seating is limited. Make your reservation here.
Please honor your RSVP.

We look forward to seeing you!
Loft


Saturday, May 9 from 10 am - 4 pm
Finding Beauty and Meaning in
Your Own Unique Story
a workshop with Marilyn Stoner and Mark Steiner
at the Loft, 107 Crescent Avenue

Suggested donation $25 - 50.
Make your reservation by emailing us.

"I asked myself "What is the myth you are living?"  and found that I did not know.  So . . . I took it upon myself to get to know my "myth", and I regarded this as the task of tasks . . . I simply had to know what unconscious  or preconscious myth was forming me."   CG Jung

Finding Beauty and Meaning in Your Own Unique Story explores not just the power of story, but the power and inspiration which lies waiting to be discovered within our own unique life journey.  It examines ways to harness our fascination with story in order to help us consciously create a healthier, more joyful and connected life.

This workshop examines the connections between the stories we tell and who we are as well as between the stories we tell and what is possible in our lives and in the larger world.

"Story is far older than the art of science and psychology, and will always be the elder in the equation no matter how much time passes."  -Clarissa Pinkola Estes


Saturday, May 9th 4 pm
Author Joe Grant on his new book
Still in the Storm:
Reflections for Engaging Spirituality in Times Like These
Carmichael's Bookstore, 2720 Frankfort Avenue

Meet Joe Grant, author of this new publication from JustFaith Ministries as he shares prayerful reflections from Still In the Storm and explores the intersection between spirituality and social concern.

A native of Scotland, Joe Grant brings breadth of life and depth of spiritual experience to his work as Director of Programs for JustFaith Ministries. In addition to writing numerous programs and articles, Joe has authored a series of resources on justice, service, prayer and scripture for Catholic Youth Ministry. In 2004, he received the National Youth Ministry Award for the Gospel Values of Justice and Peace. He is also a co-founder of CrossRoads Ministry, an inner-city retreat center in West Louisville.

 



Friday, May 15 at 8:30 am
Compassionate Louisville Town Hall Meeting
Brown-Forman Conference Center, 850 Dixie Highway

Experience compassion in action!  Each month we invite you on a pilgrimage to discover the city's often hidden compassion gems. Once at the site, we will share the mission of the host organization, celebrate the newest organizations to have adopted a compassion resolution, congratulate the newest Compassion Laureate, share how Compassionate Louisville is encouraging compassionate action, and provide a forum for you and others to share their compassionate actions.


Everyone is invited! Bring a Friend! No RSVP required.

Through intention and social innovation, Compassionate Louisville creates
and celebrates a community and world becoming more and more compassionate.

The mission of the Partnership for a Compassionate Louisville is to
champion and nurture the growth of compassion.



Friday May 15, 2 - 4 pm
Festival of Faiths Presents
Sacred World - Secular and Sacred
Actors Theatre of Louisville

Featuring: Dr. William F. Vendley * Prof. Jeffrey D. Sachs * Shaykh Abdallah Bin Bayyah * H.E. Cardinal John Onaiyekan * Rabbi Rick Jacobs

Issues of rising inequality, war, the climate crisis, nationalism, and extremism are diverting us from sustainable development. What are the moral and religious obligations of faith leaders to tackle these global issues? This session also explores the importance of joint action, education, and advocacy.

Short talks followed by panel discussion and Q&A with audience.

2015 marks the 20th anniversary of the Festival of Faiths - a five day festival of music, spoken word poetry, film, theatre, photography and dialogue with internationally renowned spiritual leaders, teachers and practitioners.

Details, tickets and a full Festival of Faiths May 12 - 17 schedule are available here.

 


 


Saturday, May 16, 7:30 pm
Music in the Arbor 
Thomas Jefferson Unitarian Church, 4938 Brownsboro Road

Attend this concert featuring Celtic world music band-
Keltricity.  
Also appearing will be The Southern Sirens, and Barb Friedland.
 
The proceeds from this concert will help support
Louisville Grows, 
Their mission is to grow a just and sustainable community in Louisville, Kentucky,
through urban agriculture, urban forestry, and environmental education. 
Their programs include community gardens, Love Louisville Trees,
the Seeds and Starts Garden Resource Program, and the Urban Growers Cooperative.


 Tickets at the door only.
$12 adults and $6 for youth under 12. 


 
Come to the The Power of Music Project 
Celebration Concert 
starring Emerging Regional Teenage Singer Songwriters
and featuring
Louisville's kRi and hettie

Sunday, May 17, 5:00 pm at Headliners Music Hall
Ticket Price: $15 - Click here to get yours!

The Power of Music Project (POMP!) is a 6-month workshop where members of the next generation of the region's young singer songwriters gather regularly to develop their voices and create songs inspired by service and compassion.

The celebration concert (presented by  91.9 WFPK) will be held at Headliners Music Hall on Sunday, May 17th at 5:00 pm (doors at 4 pm).  At this exciting live show, each of these young artists will perform original songs sharing the stage with one another as well as with the program's facilitators, Louisville-based recording artists kRi and hettie.

Everyone is invited! General admission tickets are available for $15 at www.headlinerslouisville.com, 1-800-514-ETIX, or in person at Headliners Box Office.
Any remaining tickets will be available at the door.




 
  

Sunday, May 17 from 6 - 8 pm
Louisville TimeBank Potluck 
Highland Community Campus, 1228 E. Breckenridge

Potlucks are a big part of the TimeBank community. We come together to share food,

fun and build community all at the same time. Members get to know each other,

and people who are not members can learn a bit about timebanking from chatting

with our members at the potluck. Many exchanges get set up at our potlucks too! 

  • If you can, please bring your own table service: plate, silverware and glass as well as a serving piece for your dish. 

The address is 1228 E Breckinridge, but the parking is in the lot behind the building off of Barrett. Highland Community Campus is in the former Christ Evangelical Church. The entrance to the building is in the back as well. Please look at this map here to make sure you can find us!

  

For Louisville TimeBank members, in addition to bringing your dish, there are also jobs to sign up for that are available for time credits -- from set-up to kids' activities.  

  

Watch this video about theTimeBank from

Louisville Metro TV's "Common Ground" feature on the Timebank  

 

Looking forward to seeing you!



 
Monday May 18, 6 pm
Social Change Book Club presents  
How to Make Sense of Any Mess:
Information Architecture for Everybody
by Abby Covert

Everything is getting more complex.

It is easy to be overwhelmed by the amount of information we encounter each day. Whether at work, at school, or in our personal endeavors, there's a deepening (and inescapable) need for people to work with and understand information.

Information architecture is the way that we arrange the parts of something to make it understandable as a whole. When we make things for others to use, the architecture of information that we choose greatly affects our ability to deliver our intended message to our users.

We all face messes made of information and people. The word "mess" is defined as "A situation where the interactions between people and information are confusing or full of difficulties."  We bump up against messes made of information and people every day.

This book provides a seven step process for making sense of any mess. Each chapter contains a set of lessons as well as workbook exercises designed  to help work through our own mess.

Hosted by Howard Mason

  
 Tuesday, May 19, 7 pm
Greater Louisville Sierra Club presents:
Antarctica:
Expedition to an Ethereal World
Clifton Center 2117 Payne Street

"If Antarctica were music, it would be Mozart. Art, it would be Michelangelo. Literature and it would be Shakespeare. And yet it is something even greater; the only place on earth that is still as it should be. May we never tame it!"  Andrew Denton, Australian.

Sierra Club member Barbara Roche will share a presentation about her visit to the Antarctic Peninsula, including photos, things that surprised her, and an audio recording of the group's landings and ship life. This will be the first time Louisville Sierra Club has offered a presentation on Antarctica.

In December 2014, Barbara traveled by ship to the Antarctica Peninsula under the auspices of the Road Scholar program. She made five landings over six days and was on Drake's Passage for a total of four. She has visited all seven continents. In 1998 she retired from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) where she was employed as the editor of HORIZONS magazine. Prior to that, she was Dean of Students at Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley.



Please join us for this timely presentation.
Our programs are always free and open to the public.

Save-The-Date
Sunday, June 21 from 3 - 5 pm
Summer Solstice Sacred Celebration
Louisville Nature Center



With The Spirit Walk


And Earth Art Adventures and More






Help the Kentucky Environmental Foundation tell the story
of how a little grassroots activism can change the world.

To celebrate our 25th anniversary, the Kentucky Environmental Foundation has launched a 40-day Indiegogo campaign to raise money to make a documentary about the fight that started it all: the battle to end chemical weapons incineration in the United States. But we need your help to make this brilliant, important film a reality! Please consider supporting our Indiegogo campaign. Can't support right now? Please help us SPREAD THE WORD!

NERVE will be directed by Ben Evans,
Kentucky filmmaker and director of the award-winning film
YERT: Your Environmental Roadtrip.

NERVE Trailer - Indiegogo Bookended
NERVE Trailer

"Act Your Age" by Mark Steiner
(excerpted and adapted from a talk given at Huckabalou hosted by OurEarthNow)

MS ponder
It is time for you to start acting your age. It is time for you, me, all of us to start acting out age, to claim our larger heritage. It is time to recognize ourselves as one of the latest expressions of 13.7 billion year old universe
        
You are a present day expression of a most amazing and dynamic 13.7 billion year process claim it. Right here, right now you are the universe expressed as a one time wonder. I encourage each of us to act our evolutionary age, to act our ecological age and claim the wisdom and power that comes with that reality.

At the same time I want us all to embrace the reality that we are earthlings.  We, all of us. were birthed through the dynamic creative processes of this wondrous  planet.  We are, and this is not meant as a metaphor -  earth's babies.

You and I are not some accidental human. Earth used her amazing creativity and the gifts of deep time to bring us into the universe!  Ultimately, you, me, all of us, share one Earth mama. Through Earth's creativity we are alive, through Earth's creativity we are supported and through Earth's creativity we are powerful.  Through are hearts, minds, hands and feet Earth's creativity is extended.  Through our every act and every choice Earth's creativity is extended.

This seldom spoken of relationship with planet Earth is primary. Our future, as well as the future of thousands and thousands of other species, may depend on our ability to claim both our evolutionary age and our depth of connection with the planet that birthed us - and act accordingly.

 

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