What if women were acknowledged spiritual leaders within our religious institutions and our society?

This compelling question is at the root of the work of the multifaith Women's Spirituality Celebration's volunteer planning team. This group met here in my new cohousing home community Creekside Commons in Courtenay on Vancouver Island last weekend for a visioning retreat.

There are many definitions of spiritual practice, this evening I came up with one that interests me so I thought I'd share it with you.

Spiritual practice is about having the courage to look inside and take that first step on the fool's journey to discover who you really are and stay with it through the bumpy bits holding the vision that the destinaton will be worth it.

Midsummer, Summer Solstice, Litha are the names by which we acknowledge and celebrate this season of the high summer sun. Just six months ago we celebrated Midwinter, Winter Solstice, Yule when the sun began his climb back into the sky, from the dark days in the season of rest and regeneration. In wiccan myth and story we speak of the sun at this time as the Horned God ruddy in his brilliance circling the sky in the bright heat of his fullness, bathing the land with light and warmth.

This is the time when sweet desire weds wild delight.

The Maiden of Spring and the Lord of the Waxing Year meet in the greening fields and rejoice together under the warm sun.

The shaft of life is twined in a spiral web and all of nature is renewed.

We meet in the time of flowering, and dance the dance of life.

I have been blessed to participate in a six month collaborative process with thirteen women who accepted the invitation of artist Barbara Bickel www.barbarabickel.ca to be part of her arts-based PhD dissertation inquiry. Our journey has explored our experiences of spirituality and religion as multi-faith women leaders. The creative culmination of this experience is on display this week at the AMS Art Gallery, Student's Union Building, East Mall, University of British Columbia 10 am - 5 pm daily.

I have a good friend Andre who lives in Salmo BC and writes regularly for the Nelson Daily News. A couple of his most recent pieces speak to the global emergency we call climate change. This paragraph in his February article "Midpoint Crisis" is a profound call for a reality check:

This wonderful story came to me through a friend. It expresses so beautifully how simple human kindness can connect us and neutralize the atmosphere of fear that so often pervades public places.

I am and I've only known that for a year. It happened last November during a weekend workshop based on the teachings of Joanna Macy. Joanna is an inspirational eco-philosopher who has drawn together threads of Buddhism, systems theory and deep ecology into a methodology that transmutes the energy of despair for our planet into the energy of action for change. During the weekend I heard for the first time the story of the Shambhala Warriors, an 8th Century Tibetan Buddhist prophecy as told to Joanna by Choegyal Rinpoche. Here it is.

Every year around this time we who follow the ways of the 'old religion' gather to celebrate our ancestors, remember our beloved dead and welcome the new souls who have been born into babies in the last year. The Feast of Samhain - pronounced sow'in - is the ancient pagan ceremony that predates the Christian All Souls Day and is the root of many of the traditions that have grown up around Halloween.