Monday, September 9, 2007
East Shore Unitarian
(follow link for directions)
12700 SE 32nd
(Bellevue - I-90 at Richards RD)
Suggested Donation: $5
 

The IONS Conference plenary sessions were all amazing. There is a short summary on http://www.shiftinaction.com/share. Periodically, IONS Seattle will be sharing them in context with our themes.

This presentation by modern mystic, Andrew Harvey, on opening night (8/10/07), was both fuel and ignition. It was electric. Sparks flew when Andrew passionately commanded the fires of wisdom and action to burn within us.

Our Seattle IONS group can only give this DVD the viewing it deserves as a stand alone presentation. It serves to initiate our next month's focus on the theme
of spirituality and activism. What you will witness to ignite a follow up discussion is between the lines. This presentation went way beyond the plenary description in the IONS conference brochure as Andrew Harvey hurled flames of emotional and psychic energy, firing a fierce call to dynamic action.

Description from IONS Conference Brochure
When a profound and grounded mystical vision is married to a practical and pragmatic drive to transform all existing economic and political institutions, a tremendous holy force--the power of wisdom and love in action--is born. It is a force that can unleash, even in the middle of growing catastrophe, an unstoppable steady energy of hope and compassion.

Join us, Monday, September 10, 7:15-9:15, to experience Andrew Harvey's invitation to spiritual activism. Be ready to follow with a great discussion about Sacred Activism: The Power of Love and Wisdom in Action.

Andrew Harvey is a poet, writer, teacher, and mystic. He was born in South India where he lived until the age of nine, a period he credits with shaping his vision of the inner unity of all religions. He left India to attend private school in England, and entered Oxford University in 1970 to study history on a scholarship. At the age of 21, he became the youngest person ever to be awarded the Fellow of All Souls College, England's highest academic honor.

In 1977, Harvey became disillusioned with life at Oxford and returned to India to begin his spiritual search. He has since lived in London, Paris, New York, and San Francisco, and has continued to study a variety of religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, and Christianity. Harvey has written and edited over 30 books. Honors he has received include the Benjamin Franklin Award and the Mind Body Spirit Award (both for Mary's Vineyard: Daily Readings, Meditations, and Revelations - photographs by Eryk Hanut), and the Christmas Humphries Award for A Journey In Ladakh.

Among Harvey's well-known titles are: The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, edited with Patrick Gaffney and Sogyal Rinpoch; Dialogues with a Modern Mystic; The Way of Passion : A Celebration of Rumi; Hidden Journey; The Essential Gay Mystics; and Son of Man.

He has written for publications such as The New York Times Book Review, Yoga Journal, Body Mind Spirit, Common Boundary, and Quest. He has taught at Oxford, Cornell and Hobart and William Smith College, and was the subject of the 1993 BBC documentary "The Making of a Mystic."

Andrew's website