Below is Q&A with Jim Conon, author of Sacred Butterflies: Poems, Prayers and Practices
Jim Conlon is the Director of the Sophia Center for Earth, Art and Spirit at Holy Names University in Oakland, Calif. He recently authored a book called Sacred Butterflies: Poems, Prayers and Practices. The book is an exploration of writing poetry and prayers as spiritual practices, as well as other means of feeding and sustaining the soul.
1) Why did you write Sacred Butterflies?
The answer to this question at first appears hidden and unclear. I remember the words of Rilke as I ponder this question. He wrote: “Words are the last resort for what lies deep within.”
In a true sense, I didn’t set out to write a book of poetry, prayers and practices; it is perhaps more true to say that the Sacred Butterflies book wrote itself. As I ponder the questions that arise from reflecting on the new cosmology, I strive to, in the words of Thomas Berry, explore “other modes of understanding. As I write in Sacred Butterflies I go beyond conscious thought and “allow the words to bubble up and speak for themselves.” The best I can answer the question is that I wrote this book with the hope that I would be able to gain access to those revelatory moments that emerge from the psyche and provide access to the divine impulse that resides within.
2) How is writing poetry a spiritual practice?
In my view, the poem can be understood as a revelatory process. Just like I listen to and watch the news to see what God is up to today, I write poems to again access to my interiority to become sensitive to the impulses that I now understand as the voice of the divine that I strive to express and understand.
I understand that this the sacred impulse that arises from the psychic depths as having a revelatory quality; it can be named as a prompting of the spirit. Thomas Berry often said one of the problems of our culture and religion is that we have too much transcendence.
To heal this tendency he invented the word “inscendence”; it is from this place that I believe poetry is born.
3) What are some spiritual practices you engage with regularly?
In Sacred Butterflies I recount a conversation that took place in Derry, New Hampshire during a Christmas break. When asked how do you pray, I answered:
“I walk, I read, I write. This in many ways is my primary spiritual practice.”
- I walk to look around at the world, feel the sunshine, experience the breeze and see what is happening at this moment.
- I read; I look for wisdom in authors I admire and trust; currently I am reading works by:
- Gustavo Gutierrez, Liberation Theologian
- Thomas Berry, Cultural Historian
- Elizabeth Johnson, Theologian
- John O’Donahue, Poet and Philosopher
- Brian Swimme, Evolutionary Philosopher
- Charlene Spretnak, Feminist Writer
- Ilia Delio, Scientist and Theologian
- I write; I am currently engaged in a new writing project that is focused on a new global civilization. As I walk and read I search to articulate this vision that is emerging from within and without.
- Regular liturgical practice is also my spiritual practice.
4) How does this book fit in with your other recent work, especially Beauty, Wonder and Belonging as well as Invisible Excursions?
I see these three books – Sacred Butterflies, Invisible Excursions, and Beauty, Wonder and Belonging as something of a trilogy. They all focus on integrating all aspects of our lives together in a way that feeds and supports spiritual growth and what Thomas Berry would call our Great Work.
The book, Beauty, Wonder and Belonging: A Book of Hours for the Monastery of the Cosmos, was designed to extrapolate the content for prayer from a physical space, like a church and chapel, to the wider universe itself. Here I took the ancient monastic practice of the book of hours and focused on those liminal moments of dawn and dusk when we fell the experience of the sacred most accessible to us.
Invisible Excursions: A Compass for the Journey is an attempt to name the evolution of culture and to articulate how our personal stories, and the story of seven cultural epochs name the evolution of culture and also our own lives. I also relate how the formation of the program at Holy Names University, we call the Sophia Center, involves a dynamic integration of three important people:
- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ, who connected science to spirituality and in so doing re-sacralized the earth.
- Thomas Berry integrated cultural history, evolutionary science, world religions and an understanding of indigenous wisdom into a new story of the universe.
- Matthew Fox brought “creation center vision” into the conversation and focused the spirituality on the natural world and not just on the divine and other than human.