Tiferet Literary Journal: Fostering Peace Through Literature and Art
05/30/2019
The Spiritual Aspect of Writing Memoir: How We Find Stories in Our Quest to Find Meaning
PDF Excerpt of only Sanderson's pages
Camilla Sanderson
...earned her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Nonfiction writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts in 2017 and was ordained an interfaith minister in 2014. She enjoys functioning as a writer, a spiritual guide, a holy rascal, a spiritual rebel, and a force of TRUTH like a fierce feminine dakini with a lot of wild joy, love, and laughter.
United States
Camilla is passionate about memoir as an agent for radical social change. She is presently revising her memoir, TREETOPS AND THE BUDDHIST MONKS ACROSS THE ROAD: A Memoir of Interspirituality, in which she asks subversive questions in the hope you will stop and think and perhaps question if your beliefs are serving your growth and healing. Her writing incorporates a variety of spiritual concepts, ideas, and principles from both Eastern and Western religions. She also tells an engaging story and is the author of: The Mini Book of Mindfulness (Running Press/Hachette, 2016).
Her own spiritual yearning for mystical unity, along with a lack of interest in what she observed in religious institutions—crumbling patriarchal hierarchies, dogma, hypocrisy, deadly earnestness, judgmental attitudes—inspired her to read deeply. She also studied the world's faith traditions for two years in interfaith seminary. From Hinduism, the world’s oldest religion with a recorded written text, to Shamanism, one of the world’s oldest indigenous spiritual practices (perhaps rivaled by the Aboriginal Dreamtime) to Judaism, Buddhism, Taoism, Sikhism, native American Indian spirituality, and more. The perennial wisdom, found in ALL faith traditions, points towards how an evolution of human consciousness is possible, perhaps even necessary, for our planet to survive. Her writing and stories embody the energy of mindfulness and speak to one's inner divinity.
The central questions infusing her writing are:
HOW DOES ONE LIVE THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE AS A SPIRITUAL BEING (without getting hung up on religious dogma) and HOW DOES ONE TRANSMUTE ADVERSITY INTO SPIRITUAL GROWTH?
Her most significant influences include the work of: interfaith minister, Reverend Doctor Stephanie Rutt; Tosha Silver, astrologer and author of 'Outrageous Openness: Letting the Divine Take the Lead,' and 'It's Not Your Money'; Tibetan Buddhist nun Pema Chodron; Dakini Lama Tsultrim Allione; vulnerability and shame researcher Brené Brown; and Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hahn.
Born and raised in Australia, during her twenties to early forties, Camilla worked in the publishing industry while living in Greenwich Village, New York City with her American husband Jamie Jones.
In 2011, after Jamie recovered from cancer, they both quit their jobs and lives in Manhattan and moved to TreeTops, a log cabin in the woods of Southern New Hampshire.
Serendipitously Camilla was led to Rev. Dr. Stephanie Rutt, with whom she studied world religions for two years at Tree of Life Interfaith Seminary and was ordained an interfaith minister in June 2014. Camilla is also now a guide for the Tree of Life interfaith seminary program: https://www.tolinterfaithtemple.org/overview.html
In November 2014, a Thai Forest Buddhist monastery happened to take root on 250 acres of land across the road, bringing much loved Buddhist principles, ideas, and practices into the local community: http://forestmonastery.org/
In response to feeling called to write, Camilla continues to practice the art and craft of writing. She also teaches 'Writing Personal Essay and Memoir as a Spiritual Practice' through Tree of Life Interfaith Temple.
Jamie creates hand-crafted maple syrup, and connects with his own spirituality in nature and through friendships with our Buddhist monk neighbors.
While Camilla perceives money as simply another energy to be used wisely, and believes that conscious capitalism is possible, she also believes our planet needs more people interested in living a creative life, and in an evolution of consciousness, versus the endemic consumerism inherent in "The American Dream" which often creates endless suffering and is killing our planet.
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After exploring sacred texts in a variety of the world's faith traditions, Camilla's intention is to INSPIRE and BE INSPIRED to collectively:
*cultivate the courage to be true to who we authentically are -
knowing we need both our gifts and our muck,
and like the lotus flower we blossom not in spite of, but because of our muck
*strengthen our connection with our soul
*cultivate resilience by transmuting adversity into spiritual growth
*reinvigorate our connection with our own inner divinity, inner authority, intuition and creativity, and
*practice the art of extreme self care, radical self-acceptance, deep compassion, forgiveness, and infinite impersonal love.
