Tag: Inspiration

FORGET ZEUS AND HERA, FOR NOW

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

The Olympic Peninsula is an extraordinary extreme in continental United States. It juts out in the far upper left-hand corner, surrounded on three sides by ocean and inlets and featuring a jagged mountain range in its center. Much of it is lush and tangled, and there is relatively little human habitation.

It could be a land of the gods, as its very name suggests. Or as the Native Americans, with their stories still intact, will relate. Forget Zeus and Hera, then – this is a panoply arising from American roots and its westward focus.

Come along into the rainforest and then camp just in from the beach. As I did, collecting these poems.

Olympus 1~*~

For your own copy, click here.

SETTING UP FOR A ‘QUIRKY QUEER QUAKER PERFORMANCE ARTIST AND SCHOLAR’

~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Peterson Toscano, an extraordinary “Quirky Queer Quaker Performance Artist and Scholar” with bizarre and wonderful stories to share, is coming to my corner of New Hampshire next weekend — and it’s good reason to be excited.

I’ve heard him present the Bible half-hours at Friends General Conference and New England Yearly Meeting and can say he’s both insightful and original in his exploration of Scripture. It’s a matter of encountering a passage for the first time, no matter how often you’ve read it or heard it or think you have. I’ve also seen him delivering his comedy routines to teenagers, not the easiest of audiences, and he’s had them hanging on every word.

His topics will likely range from climate change (from a social justice point of view) and environmental awareness to human rights and gender outlaws in the Bible to coping with privilege or our most tragic losses – and back again. He’s both outrageously funny and a delightfully original thinker. Who would want more?

He’ll appear in the Dover Friends Meetinghouse Saturday at 4 p.m. with his “Everything Is Connected (a collection of stories – many weird, most true)” as a late-afternoon event that’s free to all. We’re hoping this fits in between busy rounds earlier in the day and those of the evening to come – giving folks a shot of humor and hope along the way.

Other performances are at 6:30 p.m. Saturday in Portsmouth, and Sunday at noon in Rochester and in the evening in Concord.

If you can attend any of them, great! Obviously, I’m a big fan. But why not amuse yourself and sample him in his own voice? For starters, let me suggest:

Hope to meet you there, if you can. Meanwhile, we need to get him back from Wisconsin and Maine … en route to Massachusetts.