Salon Sophia

Today we're in conversation with Emma Freeman. We spoke about artwork as a healing spiritual practice, finding sanctuary amidst troubling times in small and expansive ways, being a highly sensitive person, and the delights of language. We were also distracted by a glitchy computer camera that made it look like had a halo.

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Emma's a contemplative, intuitive artist, poet and teacher. Art making is her meditation practice and she finds deep healing in solitude, stillness and listening as she stitches on old fabrics, buries fabric books in the earth, weaves with nature and writes poems. She is a Buddhist, queer, sober and a highly sensitive person.

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Today we welcome Ryn Silverstein (they/them) to Salon Sophia. We explored a variety of topics, such as the Jewish calendar and spiral time, embracing Jewish priestesshood, impostor syndrome, sanctuary as something both internal and external and something you carry around with you which is akin to the Tabernacle in Judaism.

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FYI: there are a few f-bombs (swear words) in this conversation.

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Ryn is a writer, priestess, and facilitator with a creative living practice that's embodied, queer, and ancestrally-rooted. They cultivate longing as devotional practice, creating space in the everyday for dreaming and enchantment. Ryn roots in ancient Jewish understandings of embodiment as inseparable from both temporality and Divinity throughout the creation process, which allows for the flourishing of new creative possibilities, rhythms, and ways of being. Honoring the moon as their ancestral home, Ryn tends to the connection the moon enables between our bodies, land bodies, and water bodies.

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Today's conversation is with Clare Morgan (they/them), an Anglican priest and artist living, working, and loving in unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Skwxwú7mesh, and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ territory. They serve as pastor to the St. Brigid’s congregation at Christ Church Cathedral, Vancouver, community director and co-chaplain of Hineni House, an intentional spiritual community of young adults affiliated with St. Margaret’s in the Cedar Cottage neighbourhood in 2017, and as a musician among the Inayati Sufi community in the Pacific Northwest.

We spoke about how creative practice can connect us to the divine, revisited the early days of the pandemic, discussed the political undertones of the concept of sanctuary, Clare shared a list of surprising musical influences, and we got rambunctious with hope and joy.

We're in conversation with Helen Kwok today. Helen's a Vancouver-based artist who follows her fascination wherever it leads, exploring many avenues of creative expression: intuitive collage, quilt design, watercolour, urban sketching and mixed media in altered books. She remains dedicated to the handcrafted art form by exploring the tactile and textural possibilities of materials and pigments,. Her work evokes a sense of simplicity, naturalness and spontaneity. To play, to experiment and to see what divine inspiration reveals, all this keeps the creative process fresh and meaningful. Throughout this art journey, she has learned to trust, let go of control and surrender to the creative force that offers up many unexpected and mysterious treasures.

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Today's conversation is with Monique, the third in a trio of ardent volunteers who are tending to the formation of Sanctuary of the Arts. Monique is our community prioress and podcast host. She's a disabled and monastic creatrix who is grateful to be a guest on the unceded ancestral lands of the Coast Salish peoples in so-called Vancouver, Canada. She's the founder of Fully Woven, a crafty care collective and curator of Palomita Free Little Art Gallery, a community art project.

Today's conversation is with Christina, who is one of three ardent volunteers tending to Sanctuary of the Arts. She's a Vancouver-based photographer and our community Illuminator. Christina refers to her photography as a "love-letter" to our beautiful city and you can view some of her photos at our website's gallery.

Show Notes:

Today we're chatting with Melanie, the gathering priest of St. Hildegard's Sanctuary in Vancouver, BC and the woman who had a vision for Sanctuary of the Arts many years ago.

Welcome to our very first broadcast! All five minutes of it. Join us for future conversations with creative folk.