“What art offers is space – a certain breathing room for the spirit.” John Updike
Welcome to INTO THE BARDO, an informal collection of works from diverse and visionary creatives. Our goal is to make – however modestly – a contribution toward healing and understanding. We are a collaboration of writers, poets, story-tellers, artists, musicians, and teachers from around the world.
Our focus is on sacred space (common ground) as it is expressed through the arts. Our posts cover a range of topics: religions and spirituality, life, death, personal experience, culture, politics and current events, history, art and photography. We cover these topics in the form of essay, poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction, music, art, and photography. Generally we offer a new post each day.
We consider that all art is meditation and comes from sacred space. Through their artistic inclinations, the contributors featured express the sacred. Our contributors hail from many places including: England and U.S., the Netherlands and Greece, China and India, Malaysia, Canada and South Africa.
Many different religions are represented on the site as are atheists and agnostics. What we learn in the end is that we hold pretty much the same ideals – though we may express them in different terms – and that we all have the same desire to travel our chosen paths peacefully, to live quietly, and to know that our children will grow up and grow old in a world that is not in conflict.
We’ve learned in our years of blogging that these efforts do evolve. When I started Bardo more than two years ago, the audience was nil and the focus was narrow: one path, three people, and a wee corner of planet earth. Today Into the Bardo has a loyal readership, steadily growing and world-wide. The works featured are the gifts of nearly forty poets and writers, photographers and artists . We hope you’ll share our adventures in sacred space and stay with us as we continue to evolve …
We’ve just redesigned the site and expanded our core team of creatives, which is complementary to a group of fine contributors, some known and loved by many of you. Announcements of more additions to the core team will be forthcoming over the next weeks.
HOW DID WE GET OUR NAME AND WHAT DOES IT MEAN? “Bardo” is a Tibetan Buddhist term referring to that place after physical death when our soul is between material manifestations. It might be likened by some (Brother David Steindle-Rast, for one) to the Christian purgatory. Chögyam Trungpa Rinchoche has written of it as the “in between, like a flowing river which belongs neither to this shore nor the other. In other words: it is the present experience, the immediate experience of now.” The expression “into the bardo,” was the name originally selected because the three people initially involved were living with life-threatening illness. Our dear friend, Ann Emerson, died earlier this year. Her work is on “private” until we know the status of her copyright.
Photo credit ~ Our Gravatar – a “golden” Buddha against lovely red damask is the work of our own Wendy Alger. a fine art photographer.
Jamie Dedes
Our TABLE OF CONTENTS (i.e. the most recent posts) is to your right. There is also a SEARCH feature on the right and on the left you’ll find a category list. No awards, memes or tags please, just your pleasure and ours and bit of shared soul-speak
CONTACT INFORMATION
jamiededes@gmail.com
COPYRIGHT: 2010-2013, all rights reserved. Please do not print or post material from this site without asking permission of the author or authors. When in doubt, please email Jamie and she will put you in touch with proper person. Please put “Bardo Permissions” in the subject line. Thank you!
19th Century Indian miniature painting
courtesy of the curator of The Buddha Gallery
Fresco from Ajanta, c. 450-500 C.E.
18/19thC bronze Ganesh with his consort and mongoose
courtesy of the curator of The Buddha Gallery
