Tag Archives: Spring Street Center
Spring Street Center Rental
Spring Street Center is once again up and running for rentals, as I mentioned last week, and we already have inquiries about rentals in December. This will certainly help our cash flow, which has been hit hard by the pandemic, as you may have noticed! Thank you, iTrip Vacations Seattle!
Spring Street Center Whole House Rentals Resume
ITrip Seattle will be listing Spring Street Center very shortly for short-term (less than 30 days) whole house rentals. The plan is to connect with families who will rent during the end of year holiday season. The halls will still be available for use once in-person Latihan resumes.
House Rental
Spring Street Center has been doing whole house rentals in response to concerns about house sharing generated by COVID-19. We are in the process of linking ourselves with a company called iTrip Vacations Seattle that will list the house not only on Airbnb but on multiple short-term rental platforms. Debbie will continue doing the cleaning and finding event rentals for the halls, when that is safe again.
Finished Handicap Ramp! (Video)
Your humble narrator (& his trusty companion) gives you a tour of the new handicap access ramp at the Subud House, funded by the Muhammed Subuh Foundation and built by Resident Carpenter of Subud Greater Seattle, David Lynch. The ramp now makes Spring Street Center accessible to people in wheelchairs for weddings and other events. Enjoy a video taken today of the new feature of the Seattle Subud House.
And see a video with David Lynch here: https://www.subudgreaterseattle.com/constructing-a-ramp-for-disabled/
Poems for Peace Sept 20 7PM
The third annual celebration of poetry and peace, Poems for Peace, sponsored by the Subud International Cultural Association, is set for Saturday, September 20, 2014, at 7PM at the Spring Street Center/Seattle Subud House, 1101 15th Av, Seattle, on the corner of 15th & Spring.
Anne Padilla and Paul Nelson are your hosts and the evening will feature food, drinks, fellowship and poetry related to the theme of peace in honor of the U.N. International Day of Peace. Invited to read are those poets who participated in the 8th August Poetry Postcard Fest reading a poem or two they wrote during the month and one or two they received. Confirmed performers include:
Samar Albuhassan
Dan Blunck
Jim O’Halloran
Faiza Sultan
Thomas Walton
Bhakti Watts
THE SUBUD INTERNATIONAL CULTURAL ASSOCIATION (SICA) is a nonprofit organization providing programs and services to individuals and organizations working to nurture human values through art, culture, and creativity. SICA provides information, training, networking and support services as well as opportunities to engage and collaborate with cultural initiatives and events around the world. SICA, which has a constituency in almost 90 countries, is an active member of the International Coalition of NGOs for Peace jointly led by Peace One Day and Interpeace as well as Americans for the Arts. SICA was begun by members of the World Subud Association in the UK in 1983 and is currently based in Austin, Texas, USA.
No Latihan Th & Sat
The Cascadia Poetry Festival (May 1-4) is utilizing the Subud House for several events. This is great outreach for Subud and for our Centerprise. There will be no latihans Thursday, May 1 and Saturday, May 3. Latihans will continue on the Eastside Wednesday and Friday, as scheduled. Please plan accordingly. Sorry for any inconvenience.
Also, there is a new door code. Please see Paul to get that code if you are a helper, or open the house for latihan regularly.
Poetry as Subud Outreach Volunteers Needed!
The second Cascadia Poetry Festival happens May 1-4, 2014 at two venues in Seattle and one of them is your friendly neighborhood Subud House. (Spring Street Center.) The lineup is world class, featuring Joanne Kyger, George Bowering, George Stanley, Kaia Sand, Stephen Collis, Daphne Marlatt and many other poets from around the bioregion known as Cascadia. That this is a cultural investigation is right in line with the work of SICA, the Subud wing concerned with culture that comes from the jiwa. That events are in our house and that Spring Street Center has a table at the festival’s Small Press Fair means that Subud members are REALLY NEEDED as volunteers to staff the table and make sure guests in our house are welcomed and that the house is protected. This is the most ambitious cultural offering ever in the 40 year history of Subud Greater Seattle.
Oswald Norton (onorton [at] hotmail [dot] com) is coordinating volunteer efforts and the Small Press Fair starts Friday at 4 (load-in) and goes until 10P and Saturday and Sunday from 8:30A to 10P. The passes are transferable, and there will be no charge to get into the Small Press Fair, so different people can take advantage on different nights. The house itself will be full of poet-lodgers, so please respect their space. There will be no latihan Thursday, but WILL be happening Saturday and Sunday. We’d love if folks could show up early for latihan just to be sure the rooms are in order, though we’ll be doing are best to ensure that is the case.
And it would sure be nice to have Subud folks support this effort. That means buying a pass if you can afford one, telling folks about it or helping us find a sponsor or two, as we still have a few thousand bucks to raise to cover the basics. Thanks for considering. Thanks for entrusting the house to me and this project.
Poems for Peace 2013 (Audio)
Poems for Peace, an event conceived and initiated by SICA, the Subud International Cultural Association, was presented by Subud Greater Seattle on September 21, 2013, at Spring Street Center in Seattle, the Subud House. Paul Nelson organized and emceed the event and several regional Subud members, and some invited guests, performed poems, songs and musical invocations to celebrate peace. As was mentioned during the evening, peace is not the absence of war, but something more subtle and powerful. As M. Scott Peck points out there must be vulnerability and community. Both qualities were evident on this particular evening and celebrated by the audience of 40 attendees.
Here then is the audio of the evening as it happened:
1. Introduction, Paul Nelson (2:57)
2. Invocation by Jim O’Halloran (3:14)
3. Rant (Diane diPrima) performed by Paul and Meredith Nelson (5:04)
4. Excerpt from The Bidden Fruit, Benjamin Boyce (6:54)
5. Marching for Peace, Hadiyah Carlyle (4:16)
6. The Undergrown Beast and A Mother’s Nightmare by Ibtihal Mahmoud (3:35)
7. Peace all over the World (excerpts from a 50s style high school musical) Philip Quackenbush (6:22)
8. Notes on being a Gulf War Refugee Meena Rose (5:14)
9. Poetry Postcards as Peace Process, Paul Nelson (2:47)
10. Emile Ward (5:53)
11. Dreaming of Mother Moon, Carol Edson (Blackbird) (5:34)
12. Give War a Chance, Faiza Sultan (9:04)
13. Motherwit (from Pig War & Other Songs of Cascadia) Paul Nelson (6:46)
14. Happy Birthday to Paul (1:26)
15. Jim O’Halloran, Closing Flute Prayer (6:21)
Poems for Peace
Anne Padilla and I are facilitating an evening of Poems for Peace on International Peace Day, September 21, 2013. An international event preparing for its second annual iteration sponsored by SICA, poetry being the main vehicle by which people express their desire for peace, in all of its manifestations. http://
Poets involved in the recently concluded August Poetry Postcard Fest have been invited and the event will happen in the Chapel of the Subud House/Spring Street Center. There will also be music and dance performance and a collaborative poem composed at the event as a Prayer for Peace. We hope to see you. – Paul Nelson
See also: http://paulenelson.com/2013/09/03/poems-for-peace-seattle/ One poet confirmed:
Let’s Give War a Chance
1
كَيْ
يَمشِي الحُبُّ
حافِياًيَطرُقُ
أبوابَ الخَنادِق
So that
Love can walk about
Barefoot, knocking at
The doors of trenches.
2
كَيْ
تَلبسَ الفَراشَةُ
واقِيَة الصدرِ
عِندَ بوَّابَةِ كُلِّ زَهرة
So that
Butterflies can wear
Chest armors
At the gate of every rose
3
كَيْ
تُكَشِّرَ الشمسُ
عن أنيابِها
ويَحتَرِقَ الليل
So that
The sun can bare
Its teeth
And the night can burn away
4
كَيْ
نَبدَأبِالعَدِّ
كم رَأساً
نحتاجُ لِنُفِيضَ نهر
So that
We can start counting down
The number of heads
We will need to overflow the river
5
كَيْ
نَحْكِيَ
قِصَصاً لِأَطفالٍ مُشوَّهِين
عن “مُفَخَّخةٍ فِي بِلادِ العَجَائِب”
So that
We can tell the tales
Of disfigured children
About “A booby-trap in the lands of wonders”
6
كَيْ
نتَعَثّرَ
بِأجسادٍ مُنتَفِخَةٍ بِالأحلام
على أرصِفَةٍ سَوْداء
So that
We can stumble over
Corpses bloated with dreams
On dark sidewalks
7
كَيْ
نرى الوَطَنَ
مِثلَ السَفَّاحِيَطعَنُ أيَّامَنَا
على فِراشِ الحُلُم
So that
We can witness the nation,
Like a murderer, stab our lives
On a blanket of dreams
8
كَيْ نرى
الدُولارَ يتَسَكَّعُ
مع امرأةٍ جميلة
فِي ليلةٍ خانِقة
So that we can see
Dollars flirting
With a beautiful lady
In a choking night
9
كَيْ
تَفرِشَ الأمُّ
جناحيها علىأطفالٍ مَذعورينَ
وتَلتقِطَ القنابِلَبِأدعِيَتِها
So that
A mother can
Spread her wings over her petrified children
And catch bombs with her prayers
11
كَيْ تتَسَلَّلَ الوحدَةُ
وتحتَضِنَ الأرامِل
So that loneliness can sneak in
And hold the widows in its embrace
12
كَيْ
نَسمَعَ العَويلَ
مِن عَصافِيرَ
حُرِّقَتأعشَاشُها
So that
We can hear the wailing
Of sparrows
Whose nests have turned to ashes
13
كَيْ
نتَخَثَّرَمعَ الدمِ
ونُترَكَكأرقامٍ
فِي سِجِلٍّ بارِد
So that
We can clot with blood
And be left as numbers
In a cold record
14
كَيْ
يُوشَمَ السِياسِيُّون
عاهاتٍ سوداء
على جبينِهِمُ
المُتَدَيِّن
So that
Politicians can be tattooed
With dark blotches
On their foreheads
Of religiosity
15
كَيْ
نَلتقِطَ
قنابِلَ بشَرِيّة
خلفَأسوارِ الدين
So that
We can catch
Human bombs
From behind the walls of religion
16
كَيْ
نقترِبَ مِن الموتِ
ونتَحَسَّسَأظافِرَهُ البَشِعةِ
فِي ظُلْمَةِ الوطَن
So that
We can draw closer to death
And feel its disgusting claws
In the nation’s darkness
17
كَيْ نبقى
مَحصورينَ
في نُقطَةِ دَمٍ
سقَطَت مِن سُرَّةِ
التاريخ
So that we can remain
Trapped
In a drop of blood
That has fallen from the navel
Of history
18
كَيْ
ننامَ ونَحلُمَ
بِحُروبٍ جديدة
So that
We can sleep and dream
Of new wars
19
كَيْ
تبقى أغانِي الحرب
كعُشِّ الزنابِيرِ
في ذاكِرَتِنا
So that
The songs of wars can remain
Echoing in our memories
Like a hornet’s nest
20
كَيْ
نَسرِقَ لحظَةَ حُبِّ
سقَطَت سَهْواً
مِن جُثَّةِ مجهولةِ الهَوِيّة
So that
We can steal a moment of love
That fell off inadvertently
From an unidentified body
21
كَيْ
ننشُرَ الذُّعرَ
في قُلوبِ اليَماماتِ
وهِيَ تُصلِّي
So that
We can spread horror
In the hearts of doves
As they pray
22
كَيْ
نُلصِقَ وردَةً
على جُثّةِ كُلِّ شهيدٍ
لم يَتَمنَّى الشهادة
So that
We can stick a rose
On the corpse of every martyr
That did not wish for martyrdom
23
كَيْ
نُلوِّنَ العالَمَ
بِلونٍ جديد
خَلِيطٌ
من الدمِ
والقُبحِ
والجُنُون
So that
We can paint the world
With a new color
Blended with
Blood
Ugliness
And Insanity
24
كَيْ
نستَقبِلَ في بُيُوتِنا
ضُيُوفاً
لا نَعرِفُهُم
يحمِلونَ نُعوشَنا
So that
We can welcome in our homes
Guests
Unknown to us
And who carry our coffins
By
Faiza Sultan
2013