Held: Blessings for the Depths

By enfleshed

An anthology of blessings for the depths in four sections: space, sea, soil, spirit. Blessings are interspersed with art pieces and introspective prompts for reflection directly in your book or as a partner to your favorite journal. Includes blessings from a variety of traditions, spiritualities, and frameworks of meaning by Bayo Akomolafe, Catherine Keller, Dori Midnight and Randy Furash-Stewart, and 49 additional authors.

• Language: English
• Publisher: enfleshed
• Release date: Jan 13, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005009113

enfleshed

enfleshed creates and facilitates spiritual resources for collective liberation through prayer, liturgies, art, meditations, teaching, and other resources. enfleshed was birthed in 2017 out of a deep longing for engagement with the Sacred through collective, liberative, creative, and nourishing practices and ideas unencumbered by dogma, religious respectability politics, or denominational ties.Our intentions and efforts are to center the wisdom, experiences, and desires of those traditionally on the fringes of dominant institutions, theologies, and politics. Our values align with the poets, the healers, the truth-tellers, the tender and fierce, the messy and untidy, the seekers, the queer, and the strange ones across spiritual traditions. Inviting transformation – internal, material, and collective – we share offerings of nonconforming embodiments of faith, ancient and unfolding. With attention to the Sacred in the flesh of the earth and all creaturely forms, we find Divinity in the entangled, fleeting, beautiful and aching nature of this “one wild and precious life.” (Mary Oliver)You can reach us at [e-mail].

Book preview

HELD

blessings for the depths

edited by m jade barclay & anna k blaedel

enfleshed

spiritual nourishment for collective liberation

Iowa City, Iowa

enfleshed.com

the logo for enfleshed - a purple circle with a grey wavy tree and a single bird in flight, as if leaving the tree.

Published by enfleshed - ebook edition

Print version available at enfleshed

Copyright © 2021 enfleshed All rights reserved.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021949950

Cover art by Joanne Shih

Layout and Design by M Jade Barclay & Anna K Blaedel

enfleshed is located in Iowa City, Iowa on land that was first home to the Bah-koh-je or Ioway, Otoe, Omaha and Ponca, Pawnee, Sioux, Sauk, and Meskwaki peoples. Our presence here today is the result of the ongoing dispossession of the original tenders of this land. It is only by way of Indigenous practices of care that restoration of this land, our relations, and planetary flourishing is possible. This manifests through local, Indigenous leadership; we are specifically indebted to the work of the Great Plains Action Society, resisting colonization and indigenizing the world. https://www.greatplainsaction.org

dedication

for you, because you believe us into becoming

for you, because you whisper possibilities through mystery and dream

for you, because you can make magic through movements, and labor, and rest

for you, because you can feel, and care, and tend, and imagine so beautifully, so necessarily, so deeply

for you, because we all need to be reminded we have something to offer

for us, because as we are held, we hold each other

table of contents

space

section art - Colin Laurel

There are always other questions - Bayo Akomolafe

Another Truth - Molly Housh Gordon

Illuminated Letters - January Jaxon

reflection & response

visual meditation - Annie Ruygt

a conversation. - Michaela Atencio

Radiant Energy (Radiation Treatment) - Elizabeth D. Barnum

Blessing Over Emptiness - Rev. Alaina Kailyn Cobb

reflection & response

visual meditation - Hannah Minchow-Proffitt

A Shared Hunger - Amanda Thrasher

Found Feather Blessing - Naomi Ortiz

Blessing for someone dying - Rev. Nikkeya Berryhill

reflection & response

visual meditation - Joanne Shih

When The Past Is Present - Angela Pupino

Beyond Our Boxes - Emily DeTar Birt

reflection & response

visual meditation - Colin Laurel

QUEER MORNING BLESSINGS/birkot hashachar - Dori Midnight & Randy Furash-Stewart

our yet again yes - anna k blaedel

reflection & response

sea

section art - Joanne Shih

The Unknown - Goddess

For the Courage to Sail Off the Map - Sarah Karber

All the Way Down - Sarah S. Howell-Miller

reflection & response

visual meditation - Annie Ruygt

Maybe [a reframe] - Baylee Smith

My Maiden Voyage to Sodom - Mark Gorsuch

When weren't we - Catherine Keller

reflection & response

visual meditation - Hannah Minchow-Proffitt

The Monthly Blessing - Victoria Gaile Laidler

En temporada de desaliento/In times of despair - Tania Yadira Martínez Tadeo

reflection & response

visual meditation - Joanne Shih

the fall - Cassidhe Hart

Pregnancy - Alice Watson

I Call Her Beloved - Meta Herrick Carlson

reflection & response

visual meditation - Colin Laurel

The Waters (an excerpt) - Brenda Vaca

Blessed Be the Tree - Henry Holub

reflection & response

soil

section art - Hannah Minchow-Proffitt

Pathways - Adrian White

Bless Yourself - Trischa Goodwin

reflection & response

visual meditation - Annie Ruygt

For a difficult parental relationship - Holly Chetan-Welsh

A Blessing for My Nonbinary Child - Lisa Lundeen

Be - Walter Canter

reflection & response

visual meditation - Hannah Minchow-Proffitt

Invocation of Re-composition - A.O. Monroe

souls of the soil - Minenhle Nomalungelo Khumalo

Beans - Rev. Rachael Hayes

reflection