We have been meditating on the nobility of the human person that is announced in the Scriptures and developed by many mystics over the ages. Lately we have been focusing on Meister Eckhart’s teachings of the same. It is good to know that there are many every-day mystics in touch with these same truths walking among us. One such person is Jennifer Hereth, whom I wish to introduce you to here.
Jennifer taught over the years at our University of Creation Spirituality, where she shared an art-as-meditation practice she learned in South America called tapas, where she would bring lots of colored woodchips and sawdust to class, spread on the floor, and invite students to create a meaningful mosaic together. It was very much a team experience, one that brought up values as well as beauty. When it was completed and all admired it for a while, they would walk through it and destroy it—let it go.
Deep lessons there of birthing and letting go and bringing awe into the world—and of doing it together.
Jennifer has worked with inner city Chicago youth. Together, they created The Teenage Archetype Card Deck: 88 Cards for Therapists and Teachers. Each card is a picture depicting a deep feeling of what life is like for young people today. They include Broken, Outsider, Sissy, Jock, Emo, Illusionist, Phoenix, Wise One, and more. These cards are used to assist people to discuss parts of their personalities they would like to strengthen. To be continued…
See Matthew Fox, The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human.
And Matthew Fox, Confessions: The Making of a Post-denominational Priest, pp. 333ff.
Banner Image: A piece from Jennifer Hereth’s series, “Collateral Kids,” used with artist’s permission.
For a transcript of today’s video teaching, click HERE.
Queries for Contemplation
How do you see art and justice-making interconnecting? Is this why Eckhart connects creativity with compassion and justice-making, the Via Creativa culminating in the Via Transformative? Does this play out in your work and creativity as well?
Recommended Reading
The A.W.E. Project: Reinventing Education, Reinventing the Human
The A.W.E. Project reminds us that awe is the appropriate response to the unfathomable wonder that is creation… A.W.E. is also the acronym for Fox’s proposed style of learning – an approach to balance the three R’s. This approach to learning, eldering, and mentoring is intelligent enough to honor the teachings of the Ancestors, to nurture Wisdom in addition to imparting knowledge, and to Educate through Fox’s 10 C’s. The 10 C’s are the core of the A.W.E. philosophy and process of education, and include: compassion, contemplation, and creativity. The A.W.E. Project does for the vast subject of “learning” what Fox’s Reinvention of Work did for vocation and Original Blessing did for theology. Included in the book is a dvd of the 10 C’s put to 10 video raps created and performed by Professor Pitt.
“An awe-based vision of educational renewal.” — Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat, Spirituality and Practice.
2 thoughts on “Jennifer Hereth: Putting Creativity to the Work of Justice & Healing”
I see art and justice interconnecting because they both spring from the same deep place within which has been called the true self, among other things, that in turn is connected to as a part of God, whether conceived as the universe or cosmos or collective unconscious, etc.
Well said, Sue !!!