This newsletter is a publication of the Mystical Order of the White Rose, an emerging multi-faith cyber-community for people interested in or actively involved with traditional and/or new, post-modern, expressions of mysticism, monasticism and contemplative living. Multi-faith, multi-media daily devotionals; profiles of artists, mystics, activists and contemplatives; news, views, cool links and interesting resources are published every two weeks. To subscribe to the newsletter, click here.

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 "I am pleased that you have learnt to love a Hyacinth.  The mere habit of learning to love is the thing."  - Jane Austen

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Table of Contents

--   Daily Devotional Readings for February 1--February 14

--  "Debra A. Woodson--Artist, Art Teacher & Nature Mystic

--   Music For and From the Heart

--   "Holy Island, Holy Living & Holding Fast to An Ancient Celtic Religious Heritage"

--   Fixed Hour Prayer - A Brief Introduction and Overview

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DAILY  DEVOTIONAL READINGS FOR FEBRUARY 1-14

Please click on this link to access the daily devotional readings for January 15-31.  Once there, you will find a separate link for each day that is underlined.  Click on the link for the day you want and you will be taken directly to the reading for that day.      

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DEBRA A. WOODSON - ARTIST, ART TEACHER & NATURE MYSTIC

 

 Article by Cynthia Kiteley Lee - Copyright 2008

Living in the woods comes naturally to Debra Woodson, who glories in the peace, beauty and complexity of wild and wooded places. One of her favorite activities is looking for fossils on the 48 acres of mostly wooded property in Northwest Arkansas that she shares with her husband, a dog, a cat and three "pet" wolves.

Debra’s passion is creating art in many forms, but painting and drawing on gourds is, for her, the most stimulating of her various artistic activities. .Colored pencil drawings and mixed media drawings (watercolor and colored pencils) are works of art that Debra enjoys and does so skillfully that she has won prizes for them at regional art shows. She has also attracted a following of art students that she tutors and eager buyers who seek her out to purchase her artistic creations.

Although Debra was honored with a one-woman show at the Sager Creek Arts Center in Siloam Springs a couple of years ago, she prefers to keep a low profile and concentrate on her projects, which recently included converting a vacant house on her property into a state of the art studio and gallery. She says "it’s been a lot of work, but it was worth it to create a place completely dedicated to my artistic activities, including teaching students. The light in the building is great, and it’s a very peaceful, private place, cut off from the everyday hustle bustle that goes on in a private home."                                                        

                                                           

Wolves play a special role in Debra’s life and artwork. Her husband Don brought a pet wolf into the family when they married. This female wolf, named Wolfee, is half Timber wolf and half Tundra wolf. Wolfee and two of her children, Roe and Stella, live in a large and very well appointed pen near the Woodson’s home. Roe and Stella’s father was a "huge Timber wolf." Roe is a completely white wolf. The coloring of the fur of the other two wolves is a mixture of white, grey and light and dark brown highlights. Debra makes many drawings of the wolves throughout the year and swears that the colors in their fur change subtly from year to year.

 Wolf Face On A Gourd

She admits that she finds her wolves "magnificent creatures who are utterly devoted to their family. Our wolves do like people, but you can never completely get the wild out of them. If you let them run loose out of their pen, or without being on a leash, they tend to revert back to their wild nature."

In addition to wolves, Debra’s most popular subjects for drawings and gourd paintings are birds and flowers. She also does portraits on paper with colored pencils and mixed media.

Gourds take pride of place, however. Debra grows a variety of gourds to use for her "gourd art." She says that "The gourds speak to me. They guide me in my decisions about what to do with them. Sometimes I’ll have a technique in mind for one gourd, but it lets me know that this isn’t the right approach. It sounds strange, I suppose, but it’s like the gourds have their own individual spirits and communicate to me what they want and don’t want and what would work best.

Debra uses mixed media in her gourd art as well as her drawings and paintings. These include colored pencils, acrylic paints, water color, felt tip pens, ink, leather dyes, woodburning tools, carving, piercing, and attaching gem stones, beads, rocks, feathers and–on one gourd– deer antler.

 The feathers, antler, beads, wolves and geometric designs Debra places on some of her gourds are an artistic expression of her Native American heritage. Debra was born, grew up and has spent most of her life in Oklahoma and Arkansas. Her mother was a Muscogee Creek Indian and her father "had Cherokee blood."  Debra’s high cheek bones and startling pale jade green eyes reveal some of the genetic diversity of her Native American and Anglo-Celtic American ancestry.

                                                         

                                                                        Debra's Dad

The Muscogee (Creek) Nation is a tribal government located in east central Oklahoma. The seat of the tribal government is in Okmulgee, Oklahoma. The Creek Nation boundary includes 11 Counties. (You can learn more about the history of the Muscogee (Creek) Indians here: http://www.muscogeenation-nsn.gov/history/history.htm ).

Spirituality is a private matter for Debra. She says:  "I pray a lot, especially to give thanks for the many blessings in my life and to share my hopes, plans and intentions and ask for support and blessings on them. "  She feels most connected with and aware of  Divine energies, or what she reres to as "Holy Spirit", when she is "out in nature" or deeply involved in creating a new piece of art. 

Although she describes her life as "quiet and uneventful," the peace and beauty of her surroundings, coupled with freedom from the stressful demands of a "day job" enable Debra to stay balanced, focused and powerfully connected to Holy Spirit and her creative process.

You may contact Debra at 479-524-8009  Central Standard Time or woodsond11@yahoo.com

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   "My heart keeps open house,

My doors are widely swung."

                                               - Theodore Roethke  from the poem "Open House"

 

Music For and From the Heart

              The Rose - performed by Bette Midler  - click here for lyrics and details

              Buddhist Chant - Heart Sutra  (Mandarin) by Imee Ooi

             "Right Here Waiting" performed by Richard Marx

             "Sacred Heart"  (instrumental) short, lovely piece performed by Robert Len Stallard

             My Heart Will Go On  performed by Celine Dion

             Gaudete performed by Steeleye Span (high energy; Latin)

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 Holy Island, Holy Living & Holding Fast to An Ancient Celtic Religious Heritage by Cynthia K. Lee

 

 

 

 

  t had been 25 years--a full quarter of a century--since I visited Western Europe, and 33 years since I had lived there with my family while attending junior high, high school and college.

     Accompanied by my husband Johnny, I took a three-day detour to Northumbria in, as you might guess, the north of England, very close to the border of Scotland. In the old days, this part of the world was called the Northumbrian Kingdom. 

     In the winter of 1981 I made an unsuccessful effort to visit Holy Island, also known as Lindisfarne Island, off the Northumbrian coast.  The closest "jumping off" point for travel to the island is Berwick-On-Tweed. This time, in the Spring of 2007, the tides had turned, and the tides permitted me to make the visit at long last.  

      While spiritual pilgrimages are typically associated with a slower, more meditative pace of travel and a longer journey, my brief three-day visit in Northumbria was the most explicitly spiritually focused trip--or pilgrimage-- of my life (other than my two-day unsuccessful effort to visit Holy Island 25 years earlier).

      Even before leaving the U.S. to cross "the big pond" on a plane and alight in  England, I had been in communication with staff at the Northumbria Community, located about one hour's drive from Holy Island. Drawing heavily but not exclusively on the riches of early Celtic Christianity, the Northumbria Community gained far more recognition than they intended after publishing Celtic Daily Prayer, described by Richard J. Foster as "one of the best contemporary prayer books available."

      Like so many others, I discovered the Northumbria Community through Celtic Daily Prayer and was delighted by the chance to visit the people and place that helped to give birth to this devotional treasure. Incorporating excerpts from 6th and 7th century Celtic Christian devotional writings and modern texts, this prayer resource provides both structure and inspiraton drawn from long ago religious sources and traditions.

      The third stop on my Northumbrian pilgrimage was the Cathedral of Durham, the resting place of St. Cuthbert, who played a key role in making Holy Island a center for Christian learning and training.  The illuminated manuscripts called the Lindisfarne Gospels were produced at Holy Island, but now reside in the British Museum.

        Seeing and visiting the places that had so much to do with the birth early Celtic Christianity in Britain has been a balm and a blessing for me, with ripple effects that I am still feeling.  Spending time in worship and conversation with the people at the Northumbria Community, who have played such a strong role in sharing the vision and texts of Celtic Christianity in Britain and around the world, was also an honor and blessing. 

 

Fixed Hour Prayer 

     Work continues on the sections and resources of the Mystical Order of the White Rose website. One new addition is the section on Fixed Hour Prayer, which contains a brief introduction to and overview of the ancient tradition of Fixed Hour Prayer. Click this underlined link to learn about Fixed Hour Prayer.

 

 

 

                                 

 

 

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