About Soul Stirring Productions...
My own experience with personal growth has shown me that the soul will surge within us when we are on the right track in life to a right place for us; this is our Way. A Way is much more than just an increase in energy, since energy alone without wisdom or love can be a terrible distraction. A truly right place for us to be will include the personal experiences of heaven on earth, for with it come the joys of reunion with soulmates, the opportunities to discover and practice our talents naturally, and the miracles of synchronicity and destiny which open the universe to us as a place of great love and hope for all. Soul stirring is a great gift, to ourselves and our world.
So many people do not know that such things are even possible. It is important to be a light in the world, so that souls can move themselves toward the lights that are available. It is important to be as aspiring and true as we can be, as artists, as thinkers, as human beings. We can develop the vocabularies for stirring our souls; we can take a stand for what is real. And while it is true that many people have much to discover in the roots of their own particular religion or culture, a soul does not take a lot of interest in who talks to whom. Amateurs and professionals alike, this religion or that, whatever the gender or age: when the energy of a soul's awe is present and real, then others can feel it too. When souls speak to each other, we all do well to listen.
I have been fortunate to feel my own soul rise up and draw me near to some of the great creative teachers of inspiration and contact with the divine, such as Hildegard of Bingen and Emanuel Swedenborg. The names can go on and on of course, for all the feelers and guiding lights in our world from all the lands and traditions, so I only mention these two in particular to reveal my own Christian heritage. Sometimes it can make the soul surge just to look to a great friend of the soul. Yet personal exploration of the spiritual and the mystical, the transcendent and the lovely, the eternal and the wonderous, is not meant to be rare. It can start as easily and gently as recording your own dreams and insights, such as may blossom into journals and songs and wonderous inventions of imagery, like the ones Emanuel and Hildegard became famous for. And to be sure, the great names in history have often been prolific and confident beyond what we can or would want to imagine for ourselves, but we should never sell ourselves short. Genius comes from an attention to detail, and every soul likes to be seen and heard, sooner or later.
I have also been fortunate to live in Boston at the turn of this new millenium. Here I have found many friends and good places to nurture my devotion to all manner of Soul Stirring Productions, so I can pass the benefits onto you. I thank the Cambridge Swedenborg Chapel for the space and support to offer the Mystical Experiences Discussion Group twice a month. In their lovely Gothic chapel we will be presenting the first truly public Soul Stirring performances, with the many artists and seekers we've met in the area, including and certainly not limited to: other Christians, Buddhists, Native Americans, Spiritualists, Wiccans, New Age channelers, healing practitioners, self-styled mystics, and philosophical students of every kind. Many thanks to Ed Cates and his poetry connections for helping us get the shows going. I've also enjoyed working on this and other websites for friends, and on my own astralresearch.org you will find more examples of my influences, such as Alex Grey's workshop and the sample psychic art directory I'm building for the internet.
I've said enough for now, I don't mean to be wordy! Please check out the Events and Artists pages on this website, help yourself to the Resources, and consider attending or even contributing to a Soul Stirring Production in your area. The concept is meant to spread.
yours truly, Carl Schroeder
March 2001
March 2001
The first SoulStirring.org pages were designed on March 3, 2001, the day that the conservative Taliban regime of Afghanistan, already infamous for its repression of women, boasted of destroying the remaining Buddha statues from its country's vast cultural heritage, in order to claim a victory for Islam over the idol worshippers. This event was unusual for being opposed by every cultural and religious institution in the world, including all major museums, the United Nations, Russia, America and Europe, India, Japan, and even other conservative Islamic nations such as Egypt, Iran, and Pakistan, who paused in their ideological sparrings long enough to unanimously declare that the Koran does not demand such intolerance and obliteration. The largest standing Buddha in the world, a 3rd century 170 foot marvel of remote sculpted cliffside (already damaged from 19th century British artillery practice), was blown apart by heavy explosives.  The irony
of course is that idolotry is in the mind of the beholder, and the purpose
of the Buddhas was to mirror the freed soul to its enlightened self, so the
Talibans only succeeded in attacking their own souls in their own idol
worshipping and lostness in the illusion, or Maya. The nearby Buddhists of Tibet,
coming as they do from a place for which many souls feel a great affection,
have been under similar and brutal attack by Chinese dictators since the
1950's - and yet the places of soul from which these artful lands were
created will live on forever.
Thus on March 3 did a sad ritual for the reflection of the unenlightened mind come to a close for those whose souls were not stirred, and this website is dedicated to all who may better benefit from such art next time. |
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