Author: Karen Fermin

Study Group # 6

Post author By Karen Fermin
Post date August 27, 2020

Which Way

On Sunday the 30th August we come together for our sixth and final Sand Talk Study Group.

“Now that the small questions of existence have been answered – why are we here? How should we live? What will happen when we die? – us-two should be able to get back to the business of asking some of the bigger questions. We’ll need living lands and bodies to do that, though. So lets put these hands of ours to work.”
pg 277

What work do we need to continue with?

How do we “put these hands of ours to work”?

How do we move closer towards the charge of equanimity?

As we have explored Sand Talk together, what has stuck to you?

When: Sunday 30th August 2020, 4 -5:30ish pm AEST via zoom (please see your email for ZOOM details).

What we will do: Each fortnight us-two will continue our exploration of Sand Talk together.

Schedule: We invite you to sit zazen before gathering online. This will help to provide a wide open space for our discussions.

3:20 – 3:50pm | Offline zazen in place
3:50 – 4:00pm | Online space opens (cup of tea welcome)
4:00 – 5:00pm | Main Gathering
5:00 – 5:10pm | Closing & Notices
5:10 – 5:30pm | Informal social time.

See you Sunday

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Karen & Deborah
Study Group Hosts

2020 Term 3 Dawn Dojo

Sangha

Sweet phases of the moon. Exploration with Oreos during afternoon tea. Anouk & Karen

108 days,

as the moon waxed and waned,

we sat

together.

Before dawn.. at dawn.. in the mid afternoon and with the setting sun.

We sat

together.

The birds. The skies. The changing light.

Nudged by chaos, fur and birds at home in that chimney.

Black soot. Darkness.

Time dissolving.

Resolving.

There is always a dawning.

Long may we continue,

together

109,

110,

111

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Karen

Sand Talk Study Group

Study Group # 5

Post author By Karen Fermin
Post date August 13, 2020

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock via Wild Magazine

Everybody’s Business

We look forward to coming together for our Study Group this Sunday 16th August at 4:00pm where we will continue our exploration of Tyson Yunkaporta’s Sand Talk.

We strongly encourage you to read/re-read the chapter Duck Hunting is Everybody’s Business pg 201-227. In this chapter we meet the notion of violence being part of the pattern. Perilous & complicated subject matter.

“Creation started with a big bang, not a big hug: violence is part of the pattern. The damage of violence is minimised when it is distributed throughout a system rather than centralised into the hands of a few powerful people and their minions. If you live a life without violence you are living an illusion, outsourcing your conflict to unseen powers and detonating it in an area beyond your living space.”
Sand Talk, pg 223-224

What conflict am I outsourcing? | What/who are the unseen powers? | Can it really be detonated beyond my living space?

The burden of patriarchy and misogyny narrows the lives of every person, irrespective of gender and culture. I strongly believe there needs to be a process of acknowledgement, reflection and renewal.
This requires more than an act of resistance; I see it as a process of rebirth, redesign and reconstruction… Collectively, we need to break free from the bondage of patriarchy, white privilege and the misogynistic structures that control us. This isn’t just desirable, it is necessary, if we want to be sustainable.
Sand Talk, Kelly’s words, pg 226-7

How do I experience misogyny? | How do I challenge patriarchy and white privilege?

“Violence is clearly part of the way the universe unfolds and expresses itself, is utterly intrinsic to many life processes, and cannot possibly be disowned. It is also part of the most horrific ways in which lives and communities and nations come tragically apart and cause vast harm.
So what are some of the places, drawing from our own experience, in which we can see a strategy or response of non-violence and non-harming being brought to meet fruitfully and creatively with violence?”
Roshi Susan Murphy

Please bring your unique contribution and together we will further grow this rich ecosystem we call sangha relations.

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Karen & Deborah
Study Group Hosts

2020 Term 2 Poetry Sand Talk Study Group

Home, in a time of plague

Post author By Karen Fermin
Post date August 6, 2020

By ~ Sally Mackinnon

I’ve felt a stuck muteness and poet’s block since 6 September 2019 when the first of the shocking Spring-Summer 2019-20 bushfires devoured the sweet neighbourhoods and subtropical rainforest that I call home – at Beechmont/Binna Burra in South East Queensland. Since then there has been too much news and too many logistics going on in my world.

On an evening walk with my dog recently, as we rounded the top of a steep hill and stood on the edge of the forest in the dark, I had a little yarn with the cosmos…”I miss writing poetry so much; I would love to write again. Please can you help me?” There is such power in intention and asking for help isn’t there? The next morning as the sun streamed into my bedroom, I sat up in bed and gliding through the ether came a poem…

My mother’s pyjamas hang lifeless on the washing line.
From the kitchen window, speckled with webs,
I watch them – inanimate – without her flesh,
as the sun reaches from the east across quiet sky
to light up new leaves on red cedar
like Christmas.

Today I will walk without the dog, into subtropical bush.
Like a whisper of invisible breeze I will drift past
those busy roadworks that deliver
engineered restraints across this mountain
after wildfire scorched us all.
It’s calling me again, that forest.
Any chink in the manmade armour and I’m in;
asking permission to enter only from the Old Ones and the sea of green,
answered by the keen of black cockatoos and shy butterflies.

In this time of plague and serious news from cities,
I pay attention to the way the ground rises to meet my feet;
how earth surface and sole, step-by-step connect.
This is no monologue,
it’s a dance, it’s a song, it’s a deep-time songline and I pray that
simple walking will mind this life…

It’s also this sweet home on the top of the hill that
anchors me here.
Nothing is straight or orderly but the way
the sunset glows through the kitchen to
ignite every facet in my grandmother’s cut glass bowl is an afternoon aria.
After almost a year, we are all home again in this study of light and shade,
pyjamas and forest,
black cockatoos and rising earth.
Nothing is straight or orderly but
at sunrise and sunset we sing.

Today is exactly eleven months since the fire. The study group is reigniting my capacity to lean into more than grief – to be open-heartedly curious and light again; and to feel I am becoming a student of Zen.

I’m so grateful to you all.

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Sally

Tags Sally Mackinnon

2020 Term 2 Images Miscellaneous Online Zen Group Sand Talk Study Group

Virtual sand talking

It seemed at the latest study group,
that the virtual ZOOM whiteboard was our shared
material cultural activity today;
our campfire.

“The primary mode of communication in yarns is narrative – the sharing of anecdotes, stories and experiences from the lived reality of participants. Might include sand talk. Physical demonstrations are included. Sharing drink or food is often part of the ritual (most commonly cups of tea today). Often yarning will occur around a shared material cultural activity like weaving, painting, string making, Ceremony preparation, crossword puzzles and setting up birthday party decorations.”
Sand Talk pg 132

Sand Talk Study Group

Study Group # 4

Post author By Karen Fermin
Post date July 29, 2020

Tjanpi Desert Weavers. Photo: Senior Ngaanyatjarra artists Nancy Nanana Jackson & Eunice Porter at bush camp. ⁠Image courtesy of Tjanpi Desert Weavers Facebook page.

Yarns and yarning

We look forward to coming together for our Study Group # 4 where we will continue our exploration of Tyson Yunkaporta’s Sand Talk.

This week we invite us-two into yarning about yarning.

Without yarning, stories are just something to put children to sleep. There has to be an exchange of stories if you want to be awake and grown.
pg 130

What is yarning?

How do we do it?

How is it different to a conversation?

Can we yarn with Country?

Is Country yarning with us?

Are we listening?

We encourage you to read/re-read pages 129 – 133 of Sand Talk.

Yarns and yarning can be more than tools to enhance memory and engagement. They can be a disruptive innovation that is empowering and liberating when transferred to contemporary media.
pg 133

This Sand Talk Study Group is a place for yarning. Yarning is the natural-feeling way to discover and affirm the intimacy of “us-two”. By speaking openly, honestly and from the heart, we reveal each other and ourselves to each other and open the Way. There is no “me” without “you” in any good yarn, just the life of “us-two”.
Study group guidelines

Remember you can always add your contributions to this discussion in the comments below.

When: Sunday 2nd August 2020, 4 -5:30ish pm AEST via zoom (please see your email for ZOOM details).

What we will do: Each fortnight us-two will continue our exploration of Sand Talk together.

See you Sunday

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Karen & Deborah
Study Group Hosts

Sand Talk Study Group

Study Group #2

“You have to show patience and respect, come in from the side, sit a while and wait to be invited in.”
Tyson Yunkaporta, Sand Talk (pg.29)

Coming from the side

We look forward to coming together for our Study Group #2 where we will continue our exploration of Tyson Yunkaporta’s Sand Talk.

Here are some questions to help open our discussion this week. Please take these as a starting point and feel welcome to raise your own questions or ideas.

What is your experience of ‘us-two’?

How have you experienced ‘coming from the side’ in your own life?

How might ‘us-two’ and ‘coming from the side’ help us to deepen our exploration of ‘You are welcome here’?

How are you experiencing and exploring the movements between occupying and inhabiting; owning and belonging?

Remember you can always add your contributions to this discussion in the comments below.

When: Sunday 5th July 2020, 4-5:15 pm AEST via zoom (please see your email for ZOOM details).

What we will do: Each fortnight we will continue our exploration of Sand Talk.

Schedule: Our time/space together will flow a little differently to the last gathering. We invite you to sit zazen before gathering online. This will help to provide a wide open space for our discussions.

3:20 – 3:50pm | Offline zazen in place
3:50 – 4:00pm | Online space opens (cup of tea welcome!)
4:00 – 5:10pm | Main Gathering
5:10 – 5:20pm | Closing & Notices
5:20 – 5:35pm | Informal social time.

See you Sunday!

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Karen & Deborah
Study Group Hosts

Sand Talk Study Group

Study Group #1

Porcupine

We will come together on Sunday 21st June 2020 from 4 – 5:30pm AEST for our inaugural study group.

In preparation we invite you to read or re-read the first chapter of ‘Sand Talk’ by Tyson Yunkaporta: Porcupine. Click here if you want to read an online copy of the first chapter.

We will use the questions below as a place to start our meandering together:

What resonates with you in this chapter?
What makes you feel uncomfortable?

If you have thoughts to share before Sunday we invite you to comment on this post.

If you have any questions about the Study Group along the way please email gassho@zenopencircle.org.au

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Karen & Deborah.